{"id":91614,"date":"2026-11-09T08:47:32","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T08:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=91614"},"modified":"2026-11-09T08:47:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T08:47:34","slug":"outlier-180-the-rumble-in-kwazulu-natal-small-parties-claim-many-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2026\/11\/09\/outlier-180-the-rumble-in-kwazulu-natal-small-parties-claim-many-votes\/","title":{"rendered":"Outlier #180: The rumble in KwaZulu-Natal, small parties claim many votes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb \ud83e\udd17\u00a0Spread the goodness. Forward this email to a friend.<\/em> \u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019ve spent most of this week working on local government election results and managing our ever-evolving results dashboard<\/a> as we near the final results announcement this weekend. With our focus firmly on elections we haven\u2019t got the usual array of charts and topics in this week\u2019s newsletter but rather a selection of 4 things we now know<\/strong> about an election that is changing the political landscape. Read on for more \ud83d\udc47<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\ude4f We are able to make tools like the election dashboard because of your financial support. Building and managing tools that are useful to you not only costs us time, but they also have very real tech costs. Subscribe<\/a> or donate<\/a> today to help us to continue doing this type of work. \ud83d\ude4f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have an excellent weekend
Alastair
alastair@theoutlier.co.za<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\ud83c\udfe0 4 things about the election results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Voting is over, counting is nearly over. This is what we know from the results already released by the Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Hung councils<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By lunchtime today, there were 90 hung councils \u2013 where no party has a majority of seats. With the results of 80 municipalities still awaited, including the big metros, it\u2019s safe to say the number of hung councils will reach 100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa\u2019s municipalities do not have a good track record at running municipalities in coalitions: the power jostling in the likes of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, resulted in chaos and the collapse of services. Perhaps it\u2019s time for an expert to step in with coalition counselling, so ensure the next five years don\u2019t end in service delivery chaos in more municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. Swings and metros<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Earlier today we added a version of this swing chart for the provinces to the dashboard<\/a> showing the very noticeable drop in votes for the ANC across the country. This version just covers the metros and shows a similar pattern, albeit more extreme in some cases. Based on current counted votes the ANC has seen double digit percentage point drops in all provinces apart from Cape Town. On the gaining side the DA is in the solid green in Johannesburg and MK has made massive inroads in eThekwini while Action SA is polling strong everywhere, but especially in Ekurhuleni and Tshwane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. KZN rout<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While the ANC has taken a beating around the country it has suffered the most in KwaZulu-Natal, losing significant ground to the MK Party. These two maps show which party won each of KwaZulu-Natal's wards in the 2021 and 2026 local government elections. Each ward is coloured by the party whose candidate got the most ward-ballot votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021 the province was a two-party contest. The ANC won 467 of 901 wards, across the south, the midlands and eThekwini. The IFP won 321, almost all of them in the north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2026 the MK party, in its first local election, won 332 wards. About three in four of them are in areas the ANC held in 2021. The ANC is down to 122 wards, mostly in the far south around uMzimkhulu, Ray Nkonyeni and Greater Kokstad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

eThekwini shows the shift most starkly. The ANC won 75 of its wards in 2021 and has won one so far in 2026, while MK has won 46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Results for 2026 are provisional. Wards in grey had no results when this snapshot was taken. The ward boundaries were redrawn between the two elections, so each map uses its own year's wards.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4. Long tail<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

More that 500 parties took part in this year\u2019s elections. 130 of the parties outside the top 25 have won at least 1,000 PR votes each at this stage. Together they have won 384,857 votes, or 3.58% of the total PR vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Results as soon as they are available<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Get the latest results as they are released on our <\/strong>Outlier Elections Dashboard<\/strong><\/a>. Data is updated every 5 minutes from the IEC elections feed. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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