By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) have pulled off a spectacular victory in Wednesday’s hotly-contested by-election in Matzikama, Western Cape.
The party won with 1,568 votes. The ANC’s campaign efforts proved to be fruitless as it fizzled with a vote of just 31.57%, while the PA only managed to secure 5.60% of the votes.
Matzikama is currently controlled by a multi-coalition alliance, with the DA being the majority and its councillor Johan van der Hoven donning the mayoral chain.
The DA welcomed the victory: “We sincerely thank the voters of ward 7 in Matzikama for putting their trust in the DA,” said the party’s interim leader in the Western Cape, Tertius Simmers.
“We thank Christo Boks for recognising that his commitment to good governance can best be met as a councillor for the DA. We shall work hard to honour the result of tonight’s by-election.”
Simmers added: “The significant swing in favour of the DA gives us a stable majority coalition in the Matzikama Council.”
Meanwhile the ANC finished well ahead of its rivals in Ward 43, which is northwest of Gqeberha. It is the largest township around Kariega (formerly Uitenhage).
The party won every voting district in the ward by a large margin. It did best in KwaNobuhle 9, winning 82% of the vote, and received more than 70% of the vote in three of the five voting districts. Its leanest returns were in KwaNobuhle 7 where it won 58% in a voting district.
Ward 43 councillor Andile Andries was assassinated with ANC branch secretary Lubabalo Keso outside Andries’s home in early May. The Eastern Cape was one of two provinces in the 2021 local government elections where the ANC did not suffer major setbacks.
The ward victory for the ANC in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro is crucial, as the party governs the metro in a coalition.
A loss would have left it vulnerable.
This was also the first time ActionSA competed in an Eastern Cape election and the first time it contested a by-election outside Gauteng. The party left no stone unturned in the run-up to this by-election.