DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis told the party’s final national rally in Mamelodi, Tshwane, on Saturday: “We are within reach of overtaking the ANC nationally. I know it’s a stretch, but with your support, it is possible.”

“This is a two-horse race for first place in South Africa. The ANC or the DA,” Hill-Lewis said, and urged supporters to “make this election the beginning of a journey to a DA-led national government in 2029”.

At the EFF’s Tshela Thupa rally at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on the same day, party leader Julius Malema said the State Security Agency, “through Project Mayibuye, used R12 million of public money to infiltrate both the EFF and Fees Must Fall”.

“They planted spies in our ranks. They tried to divide us, to weaken us and to win our members back to the ANC,” Malema said.

Malema said the “same agenda continued, in different forms, with the attempt to collapse the EFF and to hand its leadership and its members to Jacob Zuma and the MK [uMkhonto weSizwe] Party”.

“Fellow South Africans, the future of municipalities in South Africa is coalition government. The days when one party could take our people for granted are over,” Malema said.

The ANC, in a “key messaging” statement published on 31 October, said: “The ANC calls for an immediate end to the political killings which pose a threat to fair, credible and peaceful elections.”

It said that “the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation against the ANC is continuing”, calling it “a well-coordinated agenda and programme to weaken the ANC at the polls”.

“We are confident of an overwhelming victory,” the ANC said.