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ANC ends 2024 with a bang after sensational ward victories in KZN, Northern Cape

ANC ends 2024 with a bang after sensational ward victories in KZN, Northern Cape
Wayne Sussman
By Wayne Sussman
19 Dec 2024
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The ANC picked up two wards in the Msunduzi and Hantam municipalities to end the 2024 electoral year on a major high. In both wards they were the third-most-popular in late May during the general election. Fewer than seven months later it is the leading party in both wards.

Ward 2 (Sweetwaters) Msunduzi, uMgungundlovu: ANC 51% (39%) MK 37% IFP 11% (58%) TRUTH <1%


The setting: Ward 2 is centred on the township of Sweetwaters which is west of the city centre of Pietermaritzburg on the other side of the N3 national road. It sits between the provincial capital and the Henley Dam. Sweetwaters includes formal housing and some informal settlements. 

uMgungundlovu is the second-most vote-rich area in KwaZulu-Natal. Besides the provincial capital, it also includes the towns of Howick, Richmond and Mooi River. 

The 2023 by-election: The IFP shocked the ANC, winning by 759 votes. In 2021, the IFP finished fourth in the ward, behind the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), regional party, the Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) and the ANC. In 15 months the IFP had shifted from also-rans in the ward to the most popular party. 

The IFP swept all seven voting districts, taking six from the ANC, while the lone EFF held a voting district from 2021. The EFF’s support all but collapsed in the ward. 

The new council composition for Msunduzi after the election was: ANC 39 (40) DA 16 EFF 10 IFP 9 (8) ABC 2 AIC 1 PA 1 Independent 1 ACDP 1 Justice & Employment Party 1. Total: 81. The ANC had to work with two smaller parties to keep the mayoral chain since it was two seats short of a majority. 

The 2024 provincial elections: MK undid all of the IFP’s 2023 gains to sweep all the districts in the ward and win 53% of the vote. The IFP finished second with 22%, well off its 2023 percentage but double their 11% in 2019. The ANC’s support collapsed from 63% to 18%, while the EFF shrunk from 15% to 1%. 

MK was by far the most popular party in Msunduzi, winning 53% of the vote. The DA came second with 18%, up slightly from 2019. The ANC fell dramatically from 63% to 17%. The IFP grew from 6% to 7% and the EFF went south from 11% to 2%. 

The 2024 by-election: The IFP councillor went from an urban hero in the party to an outcast. He was expelled from the party for a campaign of intimidating water meter readers employed by the council. 

The ANC regained the ward from the IFP by beating the second-placed MK party by 438 votes. The ANC won five of the seven voting districts, with MK winning the remaining two. The IFP fell apart in the by-election and was not able to finish higher than third place in any of the voting districts. 

Key to the ANC’s win was the wide margin of victory at Bhekizizwe Primary School, the most populous district in the ward. The ANC won here by 318 votes. The IFP won this district in 2023 and MK finished first here in May. 

This impressive win for the ANC in Msunduzi suggests that the May KZN election car crash could have been a short-term blip and that the party is on track to recover much of the support of those who deserted it in May. Msunduzi is the second-most-populous municipality in KZN. The ANC came close to tripling its support compared with the May 2024 provincial ballot. This result is certainly the ANC’s KZN election high point of the year. 

While MK easily beat the IFP for second place, it still finished 16 percentage points off its May pace. The party will know that much work lies ahead to get its general election mojo back. 

The new council composition for Msunduzi after the by-election is: ANC 40 (39) DA 16 EFF 10 IFP 8 (9) ABC 2 AIC 1 PA 1 Independent 1 ACDP 1 Justice & Employment Party 1. Total: 81. The ANC is now only one seat short of an outright majority and only has to work with one other councillor to keep the mayoral chain. 

Poll: 40% (57%) 

Ward 7 (Middelpos) Hantam, Namakwa: ANC 46% (21%) DA 33% (35%) FF+ 21% (30%) 


An average of just under 47 valid votes were cast at each of the 12 voting stations in this vast ward in the Hantam Karoo. Sheep are plentiful in this part of the world. People are not. In 2021 the voting district with the highest number of registrations was in Middelpos itself – 287 people. Fewer than 1,200 people were registered to vote across the entire ward. 

Shakespearean actor Antony Sher’s family had roots in Middelpos. His novel Middlepost is set in this tiny, isolated village. Middelpos is on the R354 gravel road between Calvinia and Sutherland. It sits above the settlement of Kompromise. Middelpos links with the Tankwa Karoo National Park via the Gannaga Pass over the Roggeveld Mountains. 

Hantam is centred on Calvinia. It also includes the small towns of Loeriesfontein and Nieuwoudtville. 

The 2021 local government election: The FF+ was pipped by the DA by 26 votes. It came close to a famous victory in the Northern Cape. The ANC was third, finishing 77 votes behind the DA. A regional party, the Namakwa Civic Movement (NCM), finished fourth on 7%. 

The FF+ won six of the 12 voting districts, with the DA winning four and the two parties sharing the spoils in one district. The ANC finished first in one of the districts. 

While the DA won the most populous district in the ward (Middelpos), it was only by four votes. However, the FF+ finished third, 22 votes off the pace. The tiny voting station of Beeswater was also key for the DA. While there were only 79 registered voters here in 2021, the DA received 21 more votes than the FF+.

The FF+’s biggest margin over the DA was 11 votes at the Onder-Downes farm district. Onder-Downes is part of the Tankwa Camino walk. While the FF+ won the second-most-populous voting district, the Diepdrift Primary School, the margin was only six votes.

The ANC won six seats in Hantam, falling one seat short of an outright majority. It formed a coalition with the Patriotic Alliance (PA). The PA won a single seat. This was enough for a majority in Hantam. The DA came second with four seats, while the NCM and FF+ both won single seats.

The 2024 provincial election: The DA won 51% of the vote in Ward 7, with the FF+ trailing further behind compared with 2021, with 23%. The ANC was third with 15% and the PA fourth with 4%. The DA won nine of the 12 voting districts, with the FF+ bagging two, including Onder-Downes, and the PA one. 

Both the ANC and the DA lost market share when one considers Hantam in its entirety. The ANC declined from 49% to 45% while the DA receded from 40% to 35%. The PA came third with 10%. The FF+ was fourth with 4%, down 2%. 

The by-election: The poll was held owing to the death of the ward councillor. The ANC shocked the DA and the FF+ to win this ward. The party has now won three consecutive seats off the DA in the Northern Cape. This loss for the DA suggests that a serious intervention will be needed in the Northern Cape as it is losing seats across the province to the ANC. Unlike the other two seats where the DA lost to the ANC, the DA was far more popular here in May than the ANC. Unlike the other two Northern Cape seats, the PA was absent from the ballot here.  

The ANC more than doubled its percentage support compared with 2021, and more than tripled its percentage support compared with May. The swing to the ANC in Middelpos was sensational. The DA lost 18% from its May result in a sub-par showing. The FF+ lost more ground compared with May and lost almost one-third of its percentage support since 2021. 

Read more: By-elections hub

The margin of victory was 68 votes. The ANC won five of the 12 voting districts, with the FF+ picking up four and the DA three. The ANC won the most populous district in the ward, the Middelpos Community Hall, by 32 votes. It also won in sparsely populated Brakfontein by 26 votes. The margin of victory in these two districts was key in helping the ANC to pull off a famous victory. 

This win for the ANC gives the party an outright majority in Hantam, as it now has seven seats in the 13-seat chamber. This means it will no longer be dependent on the PA to govern in Hantam. The DA falls to three seats from four. 

Poll: 48% (48%)

This was the final round of by-elections for 2024. By-elections will resume on 15 January 2025 in the ANC stronghold of Bushbuckridge. Electoral Commission of South Africa staff, political parties and their volunteers will have a well-earned four-week rest from electoral activity. DM

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