Elections 2021: Very early days, but this is how SA’s metros are taking shape

It’s still early days as the vote counting starts after Monday’s local government elections. There is a long way to go, and the final picture of the big winners and losers will only be known down the line. At this stage, the situation is changing rapidly.

Nonetheless, it is worth having a look at the situation in the country’s metro municipalities.

Editor's note: This story will be updated periodically throughout the day as more results start coming in.

SA has eight metros — Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Town in the Western Cape, Mangaung in the Free State, and Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane in Gauteng — and these are going to be key battlegrounds given how tightly contested many of these were following the last local vote in 2016.

Below is the situation in each of these metros, with results correct as at 8am on the IEC website. We’ll start with the coastal provinces, and move inland.

City of Cape Town

The ruling DA is off to a strong start, obtaining 66.28% (40,056 votes), followed by the ANC with 8.39% (5,072 votes) and the Cape Coloured Congress with 5.75% (3,477 votes).

Other parties in the top 5, as at 8am, were Patricia de Lille’s GOOD (4.75%) and the ACDP (3.4%). The EFF has made a slow start, with 1.82%.

Nelson Mandela Bay (Gqeberha)

As in Cape Town, it’s the DA that leads in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro. The DA had obtained just 9,351 of the votes counted by 8am, translating to 44.83%. The ANC was next, with 7,340 votes (35.19%) and the EFF in third position with 1,289 votes (6.18%).

The Defenders of the People (2.33%) and the VF+ (1.75%) rounded out the top 5.

Buffalo City (East London)

A very slow start in Buffalo City, but the ANC was first out of the blocks.

The party secured 83.16%, but this was based on just 2,627 votes counted for the ANC. The EFF was in second with 10.79% (341 votes) and the DA in third with 2.25% (71 votes). No other party had secured more than 0.8% of the early votes by 8am.

eThekwini (Durban)

Often the last metro to be concluded, the IEC website said there were “no results” available by 8am.

Mangaung (Bloemfontein)

Another good start for the ANC in a metro where the party held strong even as performance dipped in other inland metros in 2016.

By 8am, the ANC had 8,400 of the counted votes in its favour (46.28%), followed by the DA (27.56%, or 5,001 votes) and the EFF (8.63%, or 1,566 votes).

Rounding out the top 5 were the Patriotic Alliance (7.78%) and the VF+ (4.62%).

City of Tshwane (Pretoria)

Moving to Gauteng, and it’s already looking like it’s going to be a tight race. In Tshwane, the ANC has the early lead, but they are separated from the DA by just 320 votes.

By 8am, the ANC had 3,540 votes (33.35%), the DA 3,220 votes (30.33%) and the EFF 1,333 votes (12.56%). The VF+ also had reached double figure percentages by 8am (10.24%) and newcomers ActionSA also made good early ground (8.62%).

City of Johannesburg

Though it is still very early, it appears ActionSA is going to be a significant factor in Johannesburg, where party leader Herman Mashaba was mayor under the umbrella of his previous political home, the DA.

ActionSA had, by 8am, secured 19.2% of the vote in Joburg (4,292 votes), putting it in third position — a strong showing for the political newcomers. The ANC led early on, with 9,020 votes (35.14%), followed by the DA (23.29%, or 5.978 votes).

Making up the remainder of the top 5 were the EFF (13.59%) and the IFP (1.38%).

Ekurhuleni (Benoni)

More votes had been counted in Ekurhuleni than any other metro by 8am, and it was the DA that led from those early results.

The DA received 26,176 of the votes (38.53%), followed by the ANC (29.87%, or 20,294 votes) and the EFF (10.71%, or 7,275 votes).

The VF+ and ActionSA made up the rest of the top 5, with 6.3% and 5.6% of the counted vote respectively.

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