By Akani Nkuna
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Velenkosini Hlabisa says the party will seek mayoral positions in municipalities where it secured the most votes in Wednesday’s local government elections, with coalition negotiations expected to begin on Monday.
Addressing the media at the National Results Operations Centre (ROC) in Midrand, Gauteng, Hlabisa said the party was humbled by the support it received during the elections, including gains in Gauteng, where provisional results showed the IFP leading in several Johannesburg wards.
“We are going to lead the process [of coalition negotiations] and definitely mayoral candidates will be coming from our party as a leading party. And as soon as the results are realesed officially by the IEC [on Sunday], the process will begin on Monday to ensure that in the municipalities where we have more than 50% plus 1 we begin the process of getting the leadership elected,” he said
Provisional national results put the IFP at about 1.4 million votes, representing 4.7% of the vote, with 475 council seats allocated.
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This represents a decline of 70 seats from the 545 secured by the party in the 2021 local government elections, although the 2026 allocations remained provisional ahead of Sunday’s official announcement.
In the City of Johannesburg, provisional IEC results showed the IFP leading in five wards as counting approached completion. The party won two wards in the metro in 2021.
The IFP continues to draw most of its support from KwaZulu-Natal, where it secured about 20.2% of the provincial ward vote, behind the MK Party and the ANC.
The MK Party emerged as the leading party in KZN, with about 34% of the ward vote, while the ANC was narrowly ahead of the IFP.
The results also showed the challenges facing the IFP in expanding its support beyond its traditional strongholds, particularly in provinces such as Limpopo, the Western Cape and Northern Cape, where it recorded limited electoral support.
Hlabisa nevertheless welcomed the party’s performance in Gauteng and Mpumalanga, saying its growing presence outside KZN demonstrated that voters were beginning to place greater confidence in the IFP.
He said that the election results challenged the perception that the IFP was exclusively a regional party.
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“We got two seats in the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela council, this a clear demonstration that the fallacy that has been given to people that [the IFP] is a regional party has been proven that it is not true,” said Hlabisa.
The IFP secured two proportional representation seats in the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape, where the ANC retained an outright majority.
The IEC is scheduled to announce the official results at 6pm on Sunday at the National Results Operations Centre in Midrand. President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to deliver a brief speech.
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