Africa-Press – South-Africa. The ANC managed to fend off contestation as the party retained four of its wards in a string of by-elections on Wednesday.
It faced three by-elections in the Chris Hani region, including the Dr AB Xuma Municipality in the Eastern Cape.
The ANC won Ward 9 in Dr AB Xuma Municipality with 88.59%, and in Ward 12 in the same area it bagged 89.13%. In Ward 29 in the troubled Enoch Mgijima Municipality, it achieved 65.83%.
The party was also able to hold on to a ward in the North West’s Madibeng Municipality with 66.82% of the votes cast.
Meanwhile, the DA managed to retain a ward in the City of Johannesburg with 94.67% of votes cast in its favour.
Elections monitoring expert Wayne Sussman said the elections on Wednesday showed marginal signs in favour of the ANC and that the party could do well.
The Eastern Cape is a province where the ANC has consistently performed well, despite growing concerns about service delivery there.
Sussman said the election’s significance was that the ANC did well in large-population areas where support for the party could be gauged.
“The elections were very promising for the ANC, which includes areas of the Chris Hani region, which can help prove to those that had written off the ANC that they need to look at a place like the Eastern Cape, which has a high percentage of voters. In the North West, the picture is similar, and the ANC grew by much bigger margins,” he said.
“The DA also won by a very big margin in Johannesburg. The turnout was low, but Ward 102 is a large ward. The Bordeaux area in this ward is where the ANC traditionally did well, but the party performed poorly in this election in the area. The DA retained the ward firmly in place,” Sussman said.
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