The three by-elections held on Wednesday confirm the long-term trend of PA growth in the Western Cape at the expense of both the DA and the ANC. The other trends established over the last three and a half years provoke a more fundamental question: what is the point of by-elections? A deeper, more philosophical question would be: what is the point of ward councillors?
The answers seem obvious: by-elections are held to replace ward councillors when their seats become vacant, and a ward councillor’s job is to address service delivery issues in their ward and to be the conduit between the communities in that ward and the municipal council. What happens, however, when the reasons for the vacancies are increasingly political or a council is so broken that a ward councillor stands little chance of making a difference to their communities?
The media’s approach to by-elections is to measure them in terms of wins and losses, gains or retreats for this party, stability or change in that municipal council. We never stop and ask whether a change in ward councillors will lead to better service delivery, and we don’t think to measure the success or failure of a by-election by this metric.
If the by-elections were truly random events then the 369 wards contested since February 2022, (plus the PR seats across two dissolved municipalities) would be distributed randomly across local government. As the map below shows, by-elections have been concentrated in municipalities that are highly contested:
While there is a weak correlation between the size of a municipal council and the number of by-elections, the highest number of by-elections, relative to the size of the council, have been in municipalities with competing coalitions or with systemic failures of governance. Ditsobotla (in the North-West) and Thabazimbi (in Limpopo) dissolved their councils in 2022 and 2024 respectively, triggering wholesale elections across all wards and PR seats.
Ditsobotla and Thabazimbi were dissolved after persistent mismanagement, service delivery collapse and government breakdown. In Ditsobotla, two parallel governments were running before its dissolution while stakeholders in Thabazimbi begged for national government to intervene after 13 municipal managers in 12 years could not rescue the municipality. Ditsobotla still has two mayors.
Municipalities can limp on without dissolution, but the by-election record will reveal the depth of the rot. ANC factionalism in Mkhondo (Mpumalanga) led to the dismissal of five councillors and new by-elections in December 2022 after the councillors voted for a different mayoral candidate to the one anointed by the party. Three more ward councillors were replaced in April 2023 by-elections, and another by-election was held in the municipality in June 2023 after a councillor was murdered.
To date, nobody has reviewed the service delivery or governance trajectories in these three municipalities. If Ditsobotla and its twin administrations are any indication, by-elections do not affect the underlying problems in a municipality.
We have to stop meeting like this
It’s not just particular municipalities that suffer from chronic instability – certain wards appear to be doomed also. Eleven wards have held by-elections twice since February 2022 – and two other wards have been contested three times over the period. It is highly unlikely that service delivery has improved in these wards, given the turnover of councillors.
Ward 25 in Ekurhuleni (Gauteng) was won by the DA in the 2021 local government election and successfully defended by the party in May 2023 and in February 2024. The party took its share of the vote from 70% to 87% even as turnout dropped below 21% in 2024.
Ward 33 in Enoch Mgijima (Eastern Cape) was won by the ANC in 2021, lost to an independent candidate in April 2022 and then regained by the party in November 2022.
Ward 101 in eThekwini (KwaZulu-Natal) was won by the ANC in 2021 and defended successfully in February 2022 and December 2023.
Ward 5 in Kou-Kamma (Eastern Cape) was won by the ANC in 2021 and successfully defended in June 2023 and May 2025.
Ward 7 in Matzikama (Western Cape) was won by the PA in 2021, lost to the DA in July 2022, and narrowly defended by the DA on Wednesday (August 2025).
Ward 4 in Mpofana (KwaZulu-Natal) was won by the ANC in 2021 and defended by the party in September 2024 and May 2025.
Ward 2 in Msunduzi (KwaZulu-Natal) was won by the ANC in 2021, lost to the IFP in March 2023, and retaken by the ANC in December 2024.
Ward 11 in Nongoma (KwaZulu-Natal) was won by the IFP in 2021 and defended by the party in April 2023 and June 2024.
Ward 9 in Oudtshoorn (Western Cape) was won by the ANC in 2021, lost to the PA in April 2024, and defended by the PA in December 2024.
Ward 10 in Polokwane (Limpopo) was won by the EFF in 2021, defended by the party in January 2023 and lost to the ANC in April 2024.
Ward 24 in Ray Nkonyeni (KwaZulu-Natal) was won by the ANC in 2021 and defended by the party in March 2023 and September 2024.
Ward 1 in Sol Plaatje (Northern Cape) was won by the ANC in 2021, defended by the party in February 2023, lost to the PA in October 2023, and regained by the ANC in July 2025.
Ward 6 in Thaba Chweu (Mpumalanga) was won by the ANC in 2021, lost to AUM in March 2022, regained by the ANC in October 2023, and retained by the party in June 2025.
Pity the poor ward councillor
We have forgotten the reason, however putative, for holding by-elections. It is to strengthen local government, or at least to keep it ticking over. Pageantry and point-scoring has replaced good governance, and ward councillors have been reduced to the votes that they cast in council.
Being a ward councillor is a part-time job with a salary just under half that of a PR councillor. You have to field calls from angry residents at all hours though, and if you work in a broken municipality then your constituent’s basic services will remain undelivered. It makes no difference what you do or don’t do.
Our by-election analysis typically focuses on the fortunes of this party or that coalition. Our review of the last three and half years includes this important point: by-elections aren’t fixing the dysfunction in our municipalities, they are revealing it.