Key topics:MKP wins first metro seat by just 22 votesANC support crashes from 38% to 15% in wardDA loss blamed on vote split with former ally.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By John Matisonn.Listen to this story instead:.Ex-President Jacob Zuma’s populist Mkhonto weSizwe Party gained its first metro seat in a by-election in eThekwini (Durban) on Wednesday, taking the seat from the DA by 22 votes. The DA lost because a former DA supporter, Bronwynne Delaney, ran as an independent, taking just enough votes to put the DA behind the MKP party. The seat has been vacant since January, when the DA removed the former councilor, Aamir Abdul, from the council. Delaney had been part of the campaign for Abdul’s removal.Adding the DA’s 39% to Delaney’s 7% support together comes to 46% -- two percent more that the DA’s 44% in the last election in the ward in 2021.While the DA lost a seat in the council, the big vote loser was the ANC, whose support shrank from 38% to only 15% this time. MKP’s Mandla Goodoman Biyela took the ward with 38.92%, almost the same in percentage terms as the DA, only 22 votes ahead of the DA’s Rowena Bosman.The ANC’s abysmal performance confirms that the beachhead former president Jacob Zuma’s MKP established in national elections in May holds firm in KZN’s major city.Read more:.Internal turmoil, Zuma’s ‘big boss’ grip, and Zulu focus cap MK party’s vote share at 10-15 percent.The MKP has not only devastated the ANC in the ward, but also given the EFF a substantial setback. The EFF fell from 7% in 2021 to only 1% on Wednesday. The ward is a hybrid mix of black, white and Indian voters. The DA polled strongly in the suburbs around Durban North, and KwaMashu roundly supported the MKP. Heavily Indian Phoenix suffered a particularly low turnout of 18%, although those that did turn up voted predominantly for the DA. In Phoenix, where the DA polled 71%, suggesting that if there had been a higher turnout there the DA could have won.Going forward, the two main rivals are now the MKP and DA.In the other by-election on Wednesday, in Randfontein in Gauteng, the DA’s Martin Miles Brown romped home with an increase in DA support from 71% to 83%. The ANC improved from 14% to 22%, the EFF gained one percent to 4%, and the MKP did not contest the seat.
