Daily Maverick
Dailymaverick logo

South Africa

South Africa, Maverick News

Saldanha Bay's by-election reveals shifts: ANC struggles as MK emerges as a contender

Saldanha Bay's by-election reveals shifts: ANC struggles as MK emerges as a contender
Wayne Sussman
By Wayne Sussman
20 Mar 2025
Facebook
2
In May 2024 uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) only finished in tenth place on the Western Cape provincial ballot. It failed to win a seat in the Western Cape legislature. Ten months later it caused a significant upset in Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape to elect its first ever public representative in the Western Cape when it won a seat off the African National Congress (ANC). In doing so, the MK party were able to win consecutive seats off the ANC in the last two weeks of by-election activity. The ANC increased its majority to retain a seat in Johannesburg. The party also held off a spirited challenge from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in a rural Northern Cape seat.

Western Cape


Ward 1 (Middelpos Diazville West) Saldanha Bay, West Coast: MK 36% ANC 26% (41% PR*) PA 20% (4% PR) EFF 15% (11% PR) DA 2% (13% PR) GOOD 1% (11% PR) PMC <1% TRUTH 0


The setting: Ward 1 is west of the Saldanha Bay town centre and north of the Saldanha Bay military area. It is just east of Danger Bay. The area made headlines after young Joshlin Smith was abducted from the ward. It has two voting districts: one is centred on Middelpos, where the ANC does best and where the majority of voters in the ward are. The less-populous Diazville shifted from the DA to the Patriotic Alliance (PA) in the last election. Saldanha Bay is the home municipality of the late Springbok prop Tommie Laubscher and Proteas bowler Lizaad Williams. Besides Saldanha Bay, the municipality includes Vredenburg and the picturesque fishing village of Paternoster. 

Read more: Star State witness Laurentia Lombaard breaks down under cross-examination in Joshlin Smith case

The 2021 local government election: The ANC finished first on the proportional representation (PR) ballot with just more than 40% of the vote. The Socialist Workers Revolutionary Party (SWRP) — which came out of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa — came second with 17% and the DA third with 13%. The EFF was just behind with 11%.

On the ward ballot the ANC came first with 30%. It was hurt by an independent candidate who came second with 16%, followed by the SWRP, also on 16%. The DA also got into double figures with 11%. The PR ballot is used as the mode of the comparison because the independent candidate is not contesting the by-election. 

The DA lost its outright majority in the council, winning 13 of the 27 council seats. It lost four seats, which went to GOOD. The ANC came second with six, also losing ground since it had eight in the previous council. GOOD was third with four. The PA, Cape Coloured Congress (CCC), Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and EFF each won a single seat. The DA would form a government with the FF+.

The 2024 provincial election: The ANC won just under half of the vote in the ward with 49%, down 10% from 2019.  The PA came second with 18%. The party, which was not on the ballot in 2019, won over DA and GOOD voters. The EFF hurt the ANC and attracted some SWRP voters to finish third on 17%, up 10% from 2019. MK came fourth with 7%. Like the EFF, it attracted former ANC and SWRP voters. The DA lost two-thirds of its support in the ward to finish on 6%, a distant fifth. 

The DA was the most popular party in Saldanha Bay, winning just more than half of the vote, but still declined by 6%. The PA was second with an impressive 19%. It picked up votes from the DA and the ANC but hurt the latter more. The ANC had a torrid time, losing more than half of its support in the municipality as they fell from 30% to 14%. The EFF grew from 3% to 5% and GOOD from 2% to 4%. MK could only muster 1%. 

The by-election: The ward councillor died. A crowded field signed up to take on the ANC in the first Western Cape by-election of 2025. The ANC also wanted to prevent what happened in 2023 when the EFF shocked the ANC in a Vredenburg by-election. 

It was not the Red Berets that hurt the ANC here last night but the MK party. This upset win by MK saw it elect its first ever public representative in the Western Cape after being unable to win a provincial seat in the 2024 elections in the Western Cape. MK beat the ANC by 338 votes while the PA had a credible third place finish.

MK won 44% of the vote in the Middelpos voting district, beating the ANC by 370 votes. The ANC percentage vote share declined from 54% to 31%. The EFF grew slightly from 16% to 18%. The PA took 7% here after not even registering 1% in 2021. The opposite happened to the DA, which went from 5% to less than 1%. In 2021 the SWRP won 24% of the vote in this district. Many voters who either voted for the SWRP and or have links to Numsa voted for MK in this by-election. 

In Diazville, the PA won close to 80% of the vote after obtaining 14% in 2021. It was the only game in the Diazville voting town in the by-election. The DA crashed from 30% to 7%. It was even worse for GOOD as it cratered from 36% to 6%. The ANC also continued to lose support among coloured voters by falling from 12% to 5%. 

The new council composition is DA 13 ANC 4 (5) GOOD 4 EFF 2 PA 1 MK 1 (0) CCC 1 FF+ 1-Total 27.

MK will hope to build on this stunning result to further establish itself in a province that, similar to the Northern Cape, proved very challenging in 2024. The ANC has now lost two consecutive wards in Saldanha Bay. The party has a lot of work to do in the Western Cape. The PA will be enthused by the Diazville result. It shredded the DA and GOOD here and is primed to do well in many areas across the Western Cape in 2026. The DA and GOOD will hope that Diazville was a blip and that local factors were more pronounced here than provincial trends. While the EFF grew here, its West Coast thunder was stolen by MK. The party has good structures in Saldanha Bay and will want to consolidate its growth in the municipality and work to ensure that it remains the left-wing party of choice here. 

The win for MK means that it now has four ward councillors across the country, with two being in KwaZulu-Natal, one in the North West and one in the Western Cape. It also has proportional representation in Limpopo. The party is slowly but surely building a national footprint of councillors. 

Poll: 55% (48% PR)

Ward 59 (Joubert Park Fashion District), Johannesburg: ANC 57% (48%) MK 21% EFF 16% (22%) IFP 6% (4%) TRUTH <1%


Ward 59 is in the heart of the inner city of Johannesburg. High-rise buildings, taxi ranks, train stations, industrious hawkers and street vendors are common sights there. Most of the voters in the ward live in Joubert Park, which hosts the dilapidating Johannesburg Art Gallery, a building designed by Edgar Lutyens. Fashion District has aspirations to be the textile and fashion design centre of the country. 

The 2021 local government election: The ANC retained this seat, but it did not have it all its own way. The EFF came second with more than 20% of the vote and ActionSA was third with 19%, an impressive debut here for the party. As is the norm with inner-city elections in Gauteng, the turnout was very low. 

The 2024 provincial election: The ANC scraped home with 33% of the vote, losing almost half its support in the ward compared with 2019. It was just ahead of the MK party which garnered 29%. The EFF finished third with 17%, down slightly from 20% in 2019. ActionSA came fourth with 7% and DA fifth with 6%, down 2% from 2019. 

The ANC won 32% of the vote in Johannesburg, well down from 50% in 2019, followed by the DA with 25%, also declining after amassing 30% in 2019. The EFF came third with 12%, down 3% from 2019, MK was fourth, just behind the EFF also on 12%, while ActionSA came in with 6% to finish fifth. 

The by-election: The ward councillor died in a car accident. The ANC retained the ward and increased its percentage vote share in a low turnout by-election. The ANC won over 50% of the vote in all three voting districts with Joubert Park being the best result for the party. It grew from 47% to 62%. MK came second here with 16% while the EFF shrunk from 22% t0 13%. Action SA won 19% of the vote in Joubert Park in 2021. The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) grew here from 5% to 9%. 

At the MTN Taxi Rank, the ANC was 1% off its 52% return from 2021. MK tied for second here with the EFF for 23%. The EFF grew here by 4% points. Action SA took 17% of the vote here in 2021. 

Fashion District has the least amount of voters but the outcome here deserves closer scrutiny. The ANC went from 36% to 53%. MK came second with 30%. The EFF lost two-thirds of its percentage support, falling from 30% to 10%. The IFP grew from 1% to 7% in this district.  This is a district where Action SA won 24% of the vote in 2021. 

The result of this by-election suggests that the Action SA voters who chose to show up transferred their votes to MK and ANC. MK and ANC also attracted some EFF support. 

The ANC will be delighted with this win. The city in general and the inner city has generated much criticism and debate recently. This included strong remarks from President Cyril Ramaphosa. Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero will look at these results as a sign that residents of the inner city are supporting him and his recovery plan for the Metro. 

Poll: 17% (22%) 

Northern Cape


Ward 1 (Heuningvlei Perth) Joe Morolong, John Taolo Gaetsewe: ANC 54% (63%) EFF 40% (34%) MK 6%


The setting: This is a sparsely populated ward in the second-most northern municipality in the Northern Cape. Ward 1 is the most far-north ward in Joe Morolong. It is centred on four villages and most voters are in the former asbestos mining settlement of Heuningvlei. The settlement of Perth has the second-highest number of voters. There are two smaller villages in the ward – Shalaneng and Kome – which sit between Perth and Heuningvlei. This is a harsh and desolate part of the country, but it has been recently blessed by plentiful rain. 

The seat of the municipality is in the small village of Churchill near Mothibistad. Hotazel and Vanzylsrus also form part of the municipality. Joe Morolong encompasses well over half of the John Taolo Gaetswe district.

The 2021 local government election: The ANC won more than 60% of the vote in Ward 1, but the EFF also had a strong showing, winning more than one-third of the vote. The ANC won three of the four districts, including Heuningvlei where it bagged an impressive 70%. The EFF won the second-most-populous district of Perth, taking 59%. The ANC garnered 38% of the Perth vote. 

The results in the two less-populated districts were similar to the final ward result. 

A quirk of the 2021 result was that Heuningvlei had a 138% turnout. Only 59% of Perth voters turned out, although the overall turnout was exceedingly high at 86%. 

The ANC won 18 of the 29 seats, losing three from their 21-seat total in 2016. The EFF came second with eight, up from six in 2016. Three other parties won one each. 

The 2024 provincial election: The ANC won two-thirds of the vote in the ward. The EFF came second with a gallant 30% and MK sixth with less than 1%. 

The ANC was mostly immune from losses in Joe Morolong. The party only declined from 69% to 68%. The EFF went from 22% to 26% to consolidate its second place in the municipality. MK finished fourth, behind the DA, with 1%. 

The by-election: The ward councillor died. The ANC beat the EFF by 316 votes in a relatively high turnout by-election. The 240-vote margin between the ANC and the EFF at Heuningvlei was key to the ANC retaining the ward.

The EFF edged the ANC in the small village of Kome. The EFF also retained the Perth voting district where it held off the ANC by 51 votes. The EFF will be satisfied with its 40% return. The party continues to exhibit growth in the Northern Cape. MK were well off the pace but 6% is a good improvement from the less than 1% in May 2024. 

Poll: 62% (86%)

The next round of by-elections will be on 2 April when there will be two in Johannesburg, including Ward 82 (Newlands Bosmost), where three parties will fancy their chances of tripping up the DA. The other ward is a safe DA seat. There will be two by-elections in KwaZulu-Natal, a ward near the town of Pongola where the ANC, MK and IFP will go head-to-head, and one in Shaka’s Kraal, near Ballito, where the ANC will face MK. There will also be two by-elections in safe ANC seats — in the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. DM

Categories:

Tags: