By-election report: December 2024 - March 2025
The last three months of by-elections have been eventful. Although only 13 wards have been contested since mid-December 2024, five of these were lost by the incumbent party, with the African National Congress (ANC) featuring in all five battles. The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which had been slow out of the gates since the 2024 election, smashed into the ANC’s china shop and delivered two defeats in the last two weeks.
In our first by-election report we looked at the dissolution of Thabazimbi and the emergence of MK as a player in local government. The party has accelerated in recent weeks, winning important wards from the ANC in Richmond, KwaZulu-Natal, and in Saldanha Bay, Western Cape.
In Richmond, the ANC still has a clear majority with 8 out of 14 seats, but another loss would force it into a coalition. In Saldanha Bay, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) coalition with the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) becomes marginally safer. In both municipalities the ANC’s position becomes that much weaker.
The ANC’s third loss was to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), who won a second ward from the ANC in uMhlabuyalingana municipality, extending their reach in a hung council. In the 2021 local government election the ANC won 18 of the 39 council seats and the IFP won 15, both short of a majority. The Abahlali Base Mkhanyakude Movement (ABMM), the DA and the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) supported the IFP in coalition but the Economic Freedom Fighters remained outside of any formal coalition. The National Freedom Party (NFP), formerly a coalition partner of the ANC, joined the IFP-led coalition but could still not deliver a majority.
When the IFP won its first by-election in the municipality in April 2023, it already had the numbers for a majority coalition that included every party except the ANC and EFF, and the inclusion of the NFP in the Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) in KwaZulu-Natal last year would have strengthened its position.The current seat count in council is: IFP 17, ANC 16, EFF 2, ABMM 1, DA 1, ACDP 1, NFP 1.
The ANC did win two wards, one from the DA in Hantam, Northern Cape and another from the EFF in Elias Motsoaledi, Limpopo. The ward in Elias Motsoaledi merely increased the ANC’s healthy majority in council, but the Hantam ward gave the party a majority in council. The ANC previously ran Hantam in coalition with the Patriotic Alliance (PA).
There have been 109 wards contested in by-elections since the national / provincial election (NPE) on 29 May 2024, plus 11 PR seats in Thabazimbi. The Sankey flow chart below shows how many ward seats were retained or lost by the various parties:
The ANC’s net losses now extend to 12 wards since the NPE, plus three PR seats in Thabazimbi. The DA’s loss of a ward in Hantam, Northern Cape handed the ANC an outright majority in council, making the Patriotic Alliance (PA) surplus to requirements. The IFP and MK now have a net gain of seven and five ward seats respectively.
Trends in voter turnout are largely unchanged: although most of the wards saw a decrease in turnout for the by-election there were five wards where turnout increased, in four the increase was significant. These were all in highly contested wards. Turnout was particularly low in one Johannesburg ward defended by the ANC: 16.8% in the by-election compared with 21.8% in the 2021 general election. This is a continuation of the trend of low turnout in metro wards, particularly in Gauteng metros.
