eThekwini: MK leads recorded votes with most districts still outstanding

IEC source: 5 November 2026 at 20:11 SAST. 92 of 839 voting districts and 2 of 112 wards marked complete. Valid ward votes recorded: 90,193; valid municipal PR votes recorded: 89,686. Partial count; no completed council allocation or TPR projection.

Open the refreshed eThekwini results, wards and stations →

MK leads eThekwini’s recorded ward and municipal PR vote in the reviewed IEC file. The scale of the unfinished count is just as important: only 92 of the municipality’s 839 voting districts are marked complete.

What the two ballots show

Five largest recorded municipal PR totals shown; the connected results view contains all contestant rows. Ward and PR totals are separate ballots. District tables combine ward and municipal PR ballots and are labelled accordingly.

The municipal PR totals put MK on 37,800, the DA on 18,847 and the ANC on 17,065. The IFP has 6,241. On the ward ballot, MK records 37,771, the DA 18,775, the ANC 17,686 and the IFP 6,348. These ballot-specific figures are more informative than a pooled total.

The source leaves 747 districts outside the completed count. Districts differ in electorate, turnout and party support. Their order of arrival is not a random sample of the metro. A share of completed districts must therefore not be relabelled as the share of all votes counted.

What is still unresolved

Two of eThekwini’s 112 wards are marked complete, with both completed ward seats shown for MK. That does not mean MK has secured the 223-seat council. Municipal PR seats and the many outstanding ward contests still determine the final representation.

An outright majority would require at least 112 seats. TPR has not established that threshold, a final hung council, or the identity of a future mayor. A prediction based on the early lead alone would conceal uncertainty rather than explain it.

The IEC’s earlier acknowledgement of a reported theft of unused ballots and a stamp is covered separately with its investigation status. It is not evidence that the votes in this table are fraudulent or that the count is invalid. Any new incident finding requires its own dated IEC or police record. The numerical result and the investigation must not be collapsed into a single political claim.

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The linked results service aims to collect official records every 15 minutes. Unchanged or held source records can retain an older source time. Collection time and publication time are different; a failed or held update does not turn unavailable data into zero.

eThekwini IEC source, 5 November 20:11 SAST · IEC counting and audit process, 5 November 2026