Last week’s municipal election held no surprise as to who is going to be in the driving seat, with the ANC once again managing to secure the majority vote in both the Makhado and Musina Municipality.

The election was, however, not without some surprises.

The ANC suffered a major upset in Louis Trichardt, with the DA’s Brian du Plooy snatching Ward 21, albeit marginally, from them. Louis Trichardt’s Ward 20 was also closely contested, with DA candidate Zaheera Jooma securing the majority vote in town, but losing marginally in the end to ANC candidate Vincent Mhladisa when Vleyfontein’s ballots were counted.

In total, 218 703 voters went to the polling stations in the Makhado Municipality’s 38 wards, constituting a 48.7% voter turnout. Both the ANC and DA showed growth, but just like elsewhere in the country, at the expense of smaller political groupings.

The ANC’s vote percentage grew from 83.56% in the 2006 municipal elections to 85.54% in 2011, amassing 187 075 votes. The DA secured 14 434 votes and, although it represents only 6.6% of the total vote, this still constitutes a growth compared to its 5.74% (11 607 votes) in 2006. The newcomers to municipal elections, COPE, also made a strong showing by taking 4.11% of the total vote, with 8 998 votes.

As mentioned, the smaller parties took a beating, with the ACDP’s votes almost split in half from 4 254 votes (2.11%) in 2006 to 2 249 votes (1.03%) this year. So too was the PAC’s loyalty split in half from 2 101 (1.04%) in 2006 to 947 votes (0.43%) in 2011.

The independent candidates also gave the ANC a bit of a scare in some of the wards with regard to obtaining a seat as ward councillor. In Ward 3, the ANC snatched victory by only 657 votes from the independent candidate, out of the 3 697 ward votes cast. This was also the case in Ward 12, where the ANC won by 515 votes out of 3 393 votes cast, with 1 878 votes against the 1 363 votes of the independent candidate. The only independent candidate who did win a ward seat in Council was Ward 5’s Patrick Mazibuko, winning the ward from the ANC by a mere 234 votes. In total, 3 491 votes were cast for ward councillor, with Mazibuko rallying 1 588 votes against the ANC candidate’s 1 354 votes.

In the end, the ANC secured themselves 64 seats in Council, consisting of 36 wards seats and 28 proportional representation (PR) seats. The DA has one ward seat and four PR seats. COPE now holds three PR seats, with the ACDP, PAC and Mazibuko each getting one PR seat.

Musina’s voter turnout was far better, with 19 996 voters out of the 20 328 turning up to cast their votes. The ANC massed 77.95% of the votes, with the ACDP securing 12.09% as the DA did not register their candidates in time. COPE got 5.5% of the votes and the PAC 4.47%. As a result, the ANC will take up six wards and three PR seats in Council, with the ACDP, COPE and PAC each getting one PR seat.