Real Politics: Vaal result shows voters are harder to keep

The people of Emfuleni must decide on November 4: if life is harder, why keep voting the same way? Especially when considering that within their municipality, a ward that was once an ANC stronghold was won by the DA’s Maki Emily Tshabalala, who secured her community’s trust by delivering.

For years, residents of the Vaal have watched the decline of one of South Africa’s most important industrial regions. Once a symbol of industrial strength and working-class opportunity, Emfuleni is now associated with sewage spills, water outages, collapsing infrastructure and rising unemployment. The Vaal Triangle – which includes Sasolburg across the river in the Free State – was built on steel, engineering and manufacturing.

Those industries created jobs and sustained families in Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, Sebokeng, Evaton, Sharpeville and Boipatong. Today, many residents feel trapped between rising costs and shrinking opportunities. Businesses battle unreliable services. Roads deteriorate while infrastructure buckles under years of neglect. Young people search for jobs that no longer exist.

The November election gives voters an opportunity to change that trajectory.

Across South Africa, voters are showing political parties that support can no longer be taken for granted. The ANC’s own 2024 annual report illustrates the shift. In by-elections held since the 2021 local government elections, the party won just under 44% of the 322 wards contested and suffered a net loss of 38 wards to opposition parties. More than half of those losses went to the IFP. Nine went to the EFF, three to the MK Party, one to the DA and the rest to independents and smaller parties.

The significance is not simply that the ANC is losing support. It is that voters are increasingly willing to change their minds.

That trend is now visible in Emfuleni.

Narrow win, wider significance

In May, Ward 28 in Evaton West delivered one of the most significant by-election results in Gauteng. Community leader Tshabalala won the ward for the DA by eight votes.

Just eight votes.

Still, the importance of that result lies not in the margin but in the location. Ward 28 is not a traditional DA stronghold. It is a township ward where the ANC historically enjoyed deep support. For the DA to win, long-standing ANC voters had to decide that something different was worth trying.

Voters are becoming less interested in party labels and more interested in performance. Residents know who attends community meetings. They know who responds when water is cut off. They know who is visible when the local government fails. The Ward 28 result suggests they are beginning to reward local leadership and punish poor performance.

That should concern every political party.

The lesson is not that the DA is guaranteed success. Nor does one by-election mean Emfuleni has suddenly become opposition territory. The lesson is that voters have become more demanding. Communities want councillors they know, trust and can hold accountable. They want competence rather than slogans and delivery rather than excuses.

That conversation is now taking place across the Vaal.

Creating conditions for growth

The DA governs Midvaal Municipality, which has long stood apart from many neighbouring municipalities. Whether voters agree with the party nationally or not, Midvaal has become part of a wider conversation about what effective local government looks like.

For decades, liberation history shaped voting behaviour across the Vaal. That history remains important and deserves respect. But history cannot repair a sewage treatment plant. History cannot fix a pothole. History cannot create a job. Only an effective government can do that.

The key question facing voters on November 4 is not which party they have always supported. It is which candidates and parties are most likely to improve life in their communities.

Better governance will not solve every problem overnight. But it creates the conditions for growth. Investors come where infrastructure works. Businesses expand where services are reliable. Jobs appear where municipalities function properly.

The future of the Vaal depends on restoring confidence that Emfuleni will work again.

The Ward 28 result was not simply a victory for one candidate or one party. It was a reminder that voters remain the most powerful force in South African politics. Whether voters ultimately choose the ANC, DA, EFF, ActionSA, the MK Party, or independents matters less than the message they send: performance matters.

The people of Emfuleni have spent years living with the consequences of poor governance. In five months, they have an opportunity to demand something different. If enough voters decide that their future matters more than old political habits, this election could mark the moment the people of the Vaal decided to reclaim their municipality – and their future.

Catch more of Zukile Majova’s viewpoints at Scrolla.Africa, a mobile-first news site covering breaking stories fast from communities across South Africa, where he is political editor, in English and isiZulu.

Listen to the latest episode of “Sharp Sharp”, a weekly podcast on South African politics, money and power from Currency and Scrolla.Africa, where Zukile Majova and Rob Rose unpack topics like this – on Spotify and Apple Podcasts now.

_{Top image: DA Gauteng.}