ANC wins Northern Cape, while Cope falters

4 August 2016

Pretoria - The ANC has kept its hold on the Northern Cape, while Cope’s support has shrunk significantly, according to the IEC’s final verified votes for the province.

Just after 14:00, the IEC said that it had captured 100% of the verified votes for the Northern Cape.

Provisional final results for the province indicate that the ANC, with 58% of the vote, is followed by the DA with just over 24%, and the EFF with 8.6%. In 2011, the ANC had 63.12% in the Northern Cape while the DA had 21.99%.

Notably, Cope shed the most votes in the province. In 2011, Cope had 11.79% overall support in the Northern Cape, compared to the 2.5% it has secured in this year’s local government election.

News24 analyst Piet Croucamp said Cope was not a factor in the Northern Cape any more.

"They're no factor at all, have no organisation and I don't think they have offices throughout the provinces any more like they used to have," Croucamp told News24.

"In the last election, they really imploded and there was no way they could recover," Croucamp said.

Leadership battles within Cope, and the fading of the Thabo Mbeki regime over time, had also hurt the party, Croucamp said.

"It's almost like it became a marginal figure in a marginal province," said Croucamp.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.