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EFF stuns ANC in Nkomazi with landslide victory and first win in Mpumalanga to date

EFF stuns ANC in Nkomazi with landslide victory and first win in Mpumalanga to date
Wayne Sussman
By Wayne Sussman
20 Oct 2022
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The EFF caused a sensational upset by winning a ward off the ANC in Nkomazi, a corner of Mpumalanga and a traditional ANC stronghold.

Ward 11 (KwaHoyi) Nkomazi in Ehlanzeni, Mpumalanga. EFF 58% (23% PR*) ANC 34% (74% PR), Independent-Khoza (Incumbent) 8%


The setting: KwaHoyi is a rural village next to the R571 road which links the Mananga border post on the Eswatini border with the town of Komatipoort. It is in a nook of Mpumalanga which is close to the Eswatini and Mozambican borders. 

Nkomazi is the second-safest municipality for the ANC in the province. The ANC was just shy of the 70% mark on the ward ballot, while getting more than 75% of the vote on the proportional (PR) ballot. Independent candidates getting close to 10% of the ward vote was a chief contributor to this not being the best municipality for the ANC in Mpumalanga. The municipality also borders the Kruger National Park. Its seat of power is Malelane. 

The local government election: The ANC won just under three-quarters of the PR vote in the ward, with the EFF winning just under a quarter of the vote. The ANC dominated the PR ballot, and the EFF made an impact here. The other parties contesting on the PR ballot barely made a squeak here. 

It was more competitive on the ward ballot. Mumsie Khoza, the ANC candidate, won 54% of the vote, with independent candidate Themba Tolla winning 24% and the EFF finishing third with 20%. Tolla clearly won a big chunk of ANC support and also attracted some EFF voters. 

The by-election: This was the third by-election in a row in Nkomazi because the ward councillors’ party membership was terminated owing to collusion with the EFF to get former ANC mayor and top-ranked ANC candidate on the proportional list, Johan Mkhatshwa, elected as mayor. They ignored the party instruction to vote for the mandated ANC candidates for mayor and speaker. The ANC won 50 of the 65 seats in the 2021 local government elections. The election of its candidate of choice for mayor should never have been in doubt, even with the support of the nine EFF councillors. Less-than-enthusiastic participation from the ANC caucus helped Mkhatshwa win the mayoral chain. The ANC eventually expelled the ward councillors with Mkhatswha and other proportional councillors who defied the party’s instructions. The ANC could easily fill the vacancies left by the membership terminations, but by-elections were needed to fill the ward vacancies. 

In the first two by-elections held in late August, the ANC comfortably retained one of the wards but fell below 50% in the other. In both wards, the former ANC ward councillors ran against their old party. The EFF was also competitive in the ward where the ANC’s support fell below 50%. 

Mumsie Khoza, running for the ANC, was elected councillor in Ward 11 in November. She was made a member of the mayoral committee for corporate services. She contested the by-election as an independent. Themba Tolla, the independent candidate who finished second in November, did not contest the by-election. 

The EFF pulled off the upset with a landslide victory by comfortably winning four of the five voting districts in Ward 11. The Christian Fire Church district in KwaHoyi might be the district with the fewest voters but the result there saw the sharpest shift to the EFF. In 2021, the ANC got 205 more votes on the proportional representation (PR) ballot. In the by-election the EFF got 210 more votes than the ANC as they won 74% of the vote, compared with the ANC’s 24%. In November, the EFF won 18% of the PR vote, while the ANC fell just shy of 80% on the PR ballot, winning 79%. In the Mshengu School district, the ANC got 124 more votes than the EFF in 2021 on the PR ballot. In the by-election, the EFF won the district by 243 votes as the party secured 77% of the vote, while the ANC’s vote share fell to 22%. 



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About a third of the voters in the ward are registered in the Hoyi Primary School district. This is the most vote-rich district in Ward 11. The ANC received 69% of the PR vote here in November, which fell to 40% in the by-election. The EFF went from 26% on the PR ballot to 57% in the by-election. The ANC won 325 more votes than the EFF on the PR ballot in November at Hoyi Primary School. The EFF carried the district in the by-election by 145 votes. 

The new council composition in the 65-seat chamber is ANC 49 (50) EFF 10 (9) DA 4 ATM 1 VF+ 1.

Read in Daily Maverick: “In the wrestling ring of South African politics, get set for a battle royal before 2024”

This was the EFF’s first by-election win in Mpumalanga to date. The party will know there is another Nkomazi by-election in November and a raft of by-elections in Mkhondo (formerly Piet Retief) as well. Political contestation in Mpumalanga will reach fever pitch. The province has historically been the best province in the country for the ANC. In 2022, the party lost two safe seats in by-elections there. It will want to show the other parties that the by-election loss in Nkomazi and in Thaba Chweu (Sabie) earlier in the year were outliers and finish the year on a high in the province. 

Turnout 58% (53%).

Next by-elections


There is a single by-election next week in the Eastern Cape, where the ANC’s support largely held in 2021. It will defend a seat in King Sabata Dalindyebo (Mthatha) which on paper should not be too competitive. DM

*The proportional representation (PR) ballot result from the previous election is used when it is a better indicator of support for a party in the ward. If Themba Tolla had contested the by-election, the ward results would have been used as the comparative result.

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