6 key voting districts in the battle for Tshwane

5 August 2016

Pretoria - Six voting districts in Tshwane could be key to determining whether the African National Congress or Democratic Alliance will be the biggest party in the metropolitan area, says News24 analyst Dawie Scholtz.

The DA late on Friday announced that it had won the highest number of votes in Tshwane despite the IEC having only verified just over 79% of the city's total votes.

Just after 16:20 on Friday, the DA and ANC were neck-and-neck in Tshwane with each party respectively at 42.49% and 42.61% of total verified votes each, according to the IEC.

Scholtz said there are six voting districts - where the full vote count has not been verified yet - that could be key to deciding which party will take control of the city.

Scholtz has determined these key districts according to the 2014 general election results and he specifically looked at voting districts where neither the ANC nor DA have commanding leads.

These voting districts are as follows, according their results in 2014:

Pretoria Technical High School in Ward 92

ANC - 49%, DA - 22%, EFF – 21%

Arcadia Primary School in Ward 92

ANC - 31%, DA - 50%, EFF - 11%

Pretoria-Wes Technical High School in Ward 58

ANC - 54%, DA - 18%, EFF - 20%

Philip Nel Fire Station Ward 58

ANC - 48%, DA - 18%, EFF - 27%

Corner of Brakfontein and Drakensberg Road in Ward 77 ANC - 35%,  DA - 37%, EFF - 22%

Old Philena Middle School in Ward 106

ANC - 45%, DA - 29%, EFF - 21%

"There's a group of marginal voting districts that traditionally split their support," Scholtz told News24.

"And those six that I gave you are a good sample of those, and it's VDs [voting districts] like those that are somewhere in the middle who will determine I think who ends up winning, given that they're the most fluid," he said.

However, Scholtz further said that these six VDs are "quite a small portion of the votes".

"These six VDs will be very important indicators about the sort of final marginal wards and how they're going to go," said Scholtz.

"It's not like these six have enough votes to actually swing it - they don't. They're a bit small, but they're a good indicator," Scholtz added.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.