Six by-elections were held across South Africa yesterday.

The African National Congress (ANC) was the incumbent in all six, but it was a bad night for the party, losing two wards to the Patriotic Alliance, and another to ActionSA.

The two wards the ANC lost to the PA were in Swellendam and in Johannesburg.

In Swellendam the PA enjoyed a huge vote surge. In the 2021 local government election (LGE) it had won only four votes in the ward but yesterday it won 811 votes, just more than 50% of the votes cast in the by-election. The ANC won 30% in the by-election (down from 52%in the LGE) while the DA won 19% (down from 35%).

The other by-election the PA won was held in Noordgesig, a formerly coloured township which lies on the northern edge of Soweto. Yesterday the PA won 31% of the vote, more than doubling its share compared to the LGE when it won 13%.

The 30% that the PA won was enough to give the PA the ward in a crowded field. The ANC won 22% (down from 39% in the 2021 LGE), while the Economic Freedom Fighters won 16% of the vote, a slight increase from the 13% it had won previously.

The final ward the ANC failed to defend was in Ramotshere Moiloa (Zeerust) in North West. Here ActionSA won the ward off the ANC, the party’s first-ever by-election victory.

Yesterday Herman Mashaba’s outfit beat the ANC by only two votes, out of 2 499 cast. ActionSA won 837 votes (33.5%), while the ANC won 835 (33.4%). The rest of the vote was split between an independent, the EFF, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK), and the PA.

In the LGE the ANC had won 57% of the vote and the Forum for Service Delivery (F4SD) had won 36%. ActionSA had not fielded a candidate in the ward in the LGE.

In January F4SD and ActionSA had announced they would be merging with each other and it is likely that many of F4SD’s supporters through their lot in with ActionSA yesterday.

In the Dr AB Xuma municipality in the Eastern Cape, close to the province’s borders with Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal it was a better day at the office for the ANC. It defended its seat, although with a reduced majority. Yesterday it won 69% of the vote, compared to the 76% it had won in the LGE. The main resistance was from the EFF, which won 18%, more than tripling its vote share compared to the 2021 LGE in the ward.

In Musina in Limpopo the ANC defended another seat fairly easily, winning 63% yesterday, with the DA and the EFF winning 14% and 6% respectively. However, compared to 2021 the ANC experienced another decline in support – in 2021 it had won more than three-quarters of the vote.

The South African Communist Party also fielded a candidate in the Musina by-election but won only 41 votes, just over 3%.

The final by-election was held in Langeberg. Here the ANC saw its vote share increase compared to 2021.

Yesterday the ANC won 47% of the vote, up from the 37% it won in 2021. The DA won 28% of the vote (down from the 32% it won in 2021) while the PA also saw another surge in support. It saw its support jump from the 2% it secured in 2021 to 21% yesterday.

Overall, the results will be deeply concerning for the ANC, with the party bleeding support across the country. The PA continues to grow but the DA will also be concerned by its failure to make inroads with ANC voters.