Cape Town’s smaller parties claim a bigger slice of the vote

The DA kept its hold on Cape Town and the ANC slipped again, but the quieter story of this week’s count sits further down the ballot. Parties outside the big two now hold a noticeably bigger slice of the city’s vote, Cape {town} Etc reports.

The Cape Town election smaller parties results show that every party and independent candidate other than the DA and ANC together drew 673 284 votes, or 29.68% of the total. In 2021, that same group drew 419 816 votes, or 23.07%. The figures come from the IEC Results Dashboard, with 98% of the city’s 829 voting districts counted.

The 2026 numbers are provisional and combine the ward and proportional representation (PR) ballots. Total valid votes in the city rose by about 25% from 2021, so a party’s share of the vote is a fairer measure of growth than its raw vote count.

Cape {town} Etc tracked the early results as they came in on election night.

The numbers behind the shift

Party 2021 votes 2021 share 2021 seats 2026 votes* 2026 share* Change in share Patriotic Alliance (PA) 27 044 1.49% 4 86 558 3.79% +2.30 points EFF 75 109 4.13% 10 84 940 3.72% -0.41 points Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) 28 600 1.57% 4 78 487 3.43% +1.86 points ActionSA – – – 62 445 2.73% New Al Jama-ah 22 784 1.25% 3 54 599 2.39% +1.14 points GOOD 69 326 3.81% 9 52 109 2.28% -1.53 points National Coloured Congress (NCC)** 50 853 2.79% 7 51 171 2.24% -0.55 points UDM 5 575 0.31% – 27 297 1.19% +0.88 points ACDP 42 438 2.33% 6 27 266 1.19% -1.14 points Cape Independence Party (CapeXit) 10 830 0.60% 1 4 517 0.20% -0.40 points

All parties and independents outside the DA and ANC

419 816

23.07%

52

676 979

29.62%

+6.55 points

*Provisional, with 98% of voting districts counted (IEC update, 13:06 on 7 November 2026). Votes combine the ward and PR ballots. 2026 seats are yet to be allocated. **Contested 2021 as the Cape Coloured Congress. ActionSA did not contest Cape Town in 2021. The UDM’s 2021 votes are summed from
*Provisional, with 98% of voting districts counted. Votes combine the ward and PR ballots. 2026 seats are yet to be allocated. **Contested 2021 as the Cape Coloured Congress. Parties marked – are not listed separately in the IEC’s 2021 Cape Town summary.

For context, the DA’s share moved from 58.33% to 56.64%, while the ANC’s fell from 18.6% to 13.68%.

The Patriotic Alliance records the biggest jump

The PA grew faster than any other party in the city. Its share rose from 1.49% to 3.81%, and its vote count is about 3.2 times its 2021 total.

The growth did not come with a ward. The party lost Ward 56, which covers Maitland, Kensington and surrounding areas and was its only ward in Cape Town. Incumbent councillor and PA mayoral candidate Cheslyn Daniels lost the seat to his younger brother, the DA’s Ashwin Jansen, according to News24.

Elections analyst Wayne Sussman told the publication there were ‘definitely good signs’ for the party, adding that it would have more council seats in Cape Town.

The PA’s rise in the province was already visible in early Western Cape results coverage.

The Freedom Front Plus and Al Jama-ah also climb

The Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) more than doubled its share, from 1.57% to 3.43%. Its vote count is about 2.7 times its 2021 total, an increase of 49 291 votes.

FF Plus Councillor Emre Uygun celebrated the result in a Facebook post, describing it as ‘nearly tripling our previous support in the metro’. His post put the party’s 2021 tally at 26 800 votes, while IEC data records 28 600.

Uygun said the party had faced attacks from rival politicians, social media personalities and some pastors during the campaign. He added that although it won no wards, its councillors would remain available to residents across the city.

Al Jama-ah almost doubled its share, rising from 1.25% to 2.40%.

ActionSA makes its Cape Town debut

ActionSA, which did not appear separately in the IEC’s 2021 Cape Town results, drew 2.73% this year.

The party entered the city’s race just four months before election day and won support in several voting districts, including Robben Island, which the EFF had won in 2021, News24 reported.

Western Cape leader and mayoral candidate Dereleen James said ‘ActionSA has been introduced to the residents of the City of Cape Town’.

The UDM, also not listed separately in the 2021 summary, sits at 1.19%.

Not every smaller party grew

The overall rise hides losses for several parties that won seats in 2021.

GOOD’s share fell from 3.81% to 2.29%. Secretary-general Brett Herron pointed to turnout, saying it was strong in the suburbs but that on the Cape Flats and in the townships ‘the voter turnout was falling drastically’, according to the same News24 report.

The ACDP’s share roughly halved, from 2.33% to 1.19%. The EFF’s share dipped from 4.13% to 3.71%, although its raw vote count rose. The NCC drew almost exactly the same number of votes as in 2021, but its share fell from 2.79% to 2.25% because more people voted overall.

CapeXit, which campaigns for Western Cape independence, dropped from 0.60% to 0.20%.

What growth means in council

Vote growth does not automatically translate into ward wins. With 106 of the city’s 118 wards complete, every ward declared so far has gone to the DA or the ANC, according to IEC data.

Smaller parties’ gains will instead show up in PR seats, which the IEC allocates once the count is complete. The new council has 235 seats, up from 231 in 2021.

Before the vote, DA leader and mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis warned that backing smaller parties could ‘open the door for the ANC and EFF to sneak in’, Daily Maverick reported. With the DA on course to keep its outright majority, the smaller parties will grow their presence in council without holding the balance of power.

The figures remain provisional until the IEC declares the final result, and the last voting districts could still shift the closely bunched mid-table parties.

Beyond the metro: Western Cape smaller parties: 2021 vs 2026

Party 2021 votes 2021 share 2021 seats 2026 votes* 2026 share* Change in share Patriotic Alliance (PA) 70 282 2.36% 28 275 709 7.45% +5.09 points Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) 87 847 2.95% 34 170 906 4.62% +1.67 points EFF 101 897 3.42% 24 110 231 2.98% -0.44 points GOOD 128 312 4.31% 38 67 177 1.82% -2.49 points ActionSA – – – 66 056 1.79% – National Coloured Congress (NCC)** 52 934 1.78% 8 58 999 1.59% -0.19 points Al Jama-ah 23 907 0.80% 4 55 513 1.50% +0.70 points ACDP 57 787 1.94% 12 38 246 1.03% -0.91 points UDM 597 0.02% – 27 499 0.74% +0.72 points Cape Independence Party (CapeXit) 13 883 0.47% – 6 912 0.19% -0.28 points

All parties and independents outside the DA and ANC

755 661

25.36%

–

1 159 401

31.33%

+5.97 points

*Provisional, with 99% of voting districts counted and the City of Cape Town still being finalised. Votes combine all ballots cast across the province’s 25 municipalities. 2026 seats are not shown because allocation is incomplete. **Contested 2021 as the Cape Coloured Congress. Parties marked – did not contest in 2021 or are not listed separately in the IEC’s 2021 provincial summary.

Source: IEC Results Dashboard

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**Picture: **Per-Anders Pettersson / Gallo Images

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