DA projects it will cross a million black votes and beat the EFF

The Democratic Alliance says its own election modelling projects that more than one million black South Africans voted for the party in the 2026 Local Government Election, the first time it believes it has crossed that line.

Ashor Sarupen, the party’s Federal Council Chairperson, announced the projection from the floor of the IEC National Results Operation Centre on Thursday morning, in a post published on the DA’s official X account. He said the modelling also indicates the DA will have received more votes from black South Africans than the EFF.

Sarupen was explicit that the figures are not yet official. “These are projections, and we await the final certified results,” he said.

The party’s claim rests on its own data modelling rather than on the commission’s count, and no verified breakdown of the vote by race exists in the material the DA published. The Enquirer has not independently verified the projection.

Sarupen framed the number as evidence that the DA has become “a mainstream party in every community, whether you are black, white, coloured or Indian”. He said the significance goes beyond the numbers themselves, arguing that South African politics has for too long been defined by the assumption that the colour of a voter’s skin determines the party they choose.

“The DA has always believed that South Africa can be different, that we can build a party for all, that works for all, and that delivers for all,” he said. Early results, in his account, suggest that vision is finding support in more communities than before.

He also used the projection to draw a line under racial politics. “It is a reminder that political parties do not have to rely on racial division, resentment or hatred to build support,” he said, naming good government, opportunity, dignity and a better future as the things he believes South Africans can find common cause in.

Looking past this election, Sarupen said the projection points to a shift in how a DA vote is regarded. Voting for the party, whatever the voter’s colour or community, would become an unremarkable choice rather than an unusual one, and he called that prospect remarkable in itself.

“Because it means that the old racial boundaries of our politics are beginning to lose their hold,” he said. A country for all, he added, would then be something South Africans are choosing to build together rather than an aspiration, and the future of the country’s politics would no longer be determined by the divisions of its past.

The DA’s statement is a projection offered before the count is complete, and the party itself has said the certified results are still to come. What the final figures show, including whether the one million mark and the comparison with the EFF hold once the commission has finished counting, will be settled by the IEC’s certification.