Battle for the Bay Revisited: The 2021 South African Local Elections in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality

Abstract

In a 2014 article in Politikon, entitled “Battle for the Bay,” Steyn Kotze, Prevost, and Wright analysed the 2011 local government elections in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) that saw the beginning of the decline of the electoral fortunes of the African National Congress (ANC). The article detailed how the Democratic Alliance (DA) crafted a strategy of turning out White voters in high numbers, winning the support of Coloured voters in the Northern Areas, and challenging the ANC in the Black wards of the municipality. The strategy was successful in the White and Coloured areas in the elections in both 2011 and 2016, allowing the DA to achieve a plurality of total votes and control of the mayor’s office in 2016. The 2021 local elections, with a sharply reduced turnout across the NMBM, saw the downfall of the previously successful DA strategy and the recovery of the mayor’s office by the ANC. The authors, using interviews and survey data from the Black wards of Kwazakhele, analyse how the ANC, in the context of continuing divisions and violence, was able to stabilise its vote in the face of a challenge from the resurgent Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).