Super Wednesday delivered reason to celebrate for the ANC and cause for more soul-searching for the DA.
First published in Daily Maverick 168
More than 73% of the wards up for grabs in by-elections on South Africa’s Super Wednesday were comfortably won by the ANC – a reminder that Africa’s oldest liberation movement continues to enjoy electoral success that would be the envy of any political party anywhere in the world.
Analysts had speculated that voters might punish the ANC for the economically punitive Covid-19 lockdown and the corruption that surrounded pandemic-related procurement, but there was little sign of that impulse at the polls. The ruling party won six new wards, retained 64 wards and lost just two – one to the IFP in Nkandla, causing some IFP crowing.
The new wards won by the ANC were, with the exception of one bagged from the seemingly defunct National Freedom Party, captured at the expense of the DA. Media headlines stemming from Super Wednesday – the largest number of by-elections held on a single day in South Africa’s history – have focused on the bruising losses sustained by the DA. But the triumph of the ANC is arguably more telling.
Local…
Comments