Durban — The DA has won the hotly contested ward 11 by-election in eThekwini with an increased margin on Wednesday.
The DA retained the ward with 57% of the votes. This was an improvement from 40.72% in 2021. The DA snatched the ward which includes Newlands East and Quarry Heights from the ANC after 2021 local government elections. The ANC held the ward from 2016 but failed to retain it in 2021.
In Wednesday's by-election, the ANC lost but increased its support from 28% to 30% while Patriotic Alliance only received 5%. EFF too performed badly getting only 7% of the vote.
The by-election saw the DA bringing its Federal leader Helen Zille to garner support. The party said it was important to retain a ward it holds at all cost which was why it campaigned strongly. The DA had fielded Allan Petersen.
The ward became vacant after the ward councillor relocated to New Zealand. It was the second win for the DA in a short space of time after it had won ward 73 in Chatsworth last month, which was also vacated by its councillor Ronnie Pillay who had defected to the ANC.
Reacting to the win, the DA chairperson in KwaZulu-Natal Dean Macpherson said the party is very happy with these results in ward 11 which shows that only the DA is big enough to beat the ANC.
“A number of parties had claimed they had numbers to win this ward but in the end we are grateful to the community of Newlands for placing their faith in us. The win also continues to show voters of the province that the DA is on track to be in provincial government coalition that excludes the ANC and EFF next year,” he said.
EFF and ANC are yet to react on the results.
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