EFF’s Mazwi Blose Says KZN’s Decline Has Finally Stopped

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have won just one seat in KwaZulu-Natal so far, with about 32% of the votes counted across the province on Wednesday. Even so, the party’s provincial spokesperson, Mazwi Blose, spoke to journalists without showing any sign of worry.

Blose said the early figure does not concern him. According to him, the EFF runs its own counting system that follows changes ward by ward, and some of these changes have not yet appeared in the official count. He said the party’s internal data shows its decline in the province has stopped. These claims come from the party and have not been independently confirmed.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has said the provincial figures are still incomplete. Its officials asked people not to draw firm conclusions while a large number of ballots are still being verified, and they urged patience as results from the remaining areas continue to arrive.

The EFF came into this election with a weak record in the province. In 2019 the party won 9.96% of the vote in KwaZulu-Natal, but in the 2024 general election that fell to 2.56%. Many of those voters moved to the MK Party, which has become the leading force in the province since then. This background is why the party’s current numbers are being watched so closely.

A single seat at this stage does not say much about the final outcome. If Blose’s figures are right and the count confirms them, the EFF can argue that it has stopped losing ground in KwaZulu-Natal. If its share shrinks further as more results come in, that argument will be harder to make. For now the count is still going, and the final picture will only be clear once the IEC has completed and declared the results.

I left out a few details from the original because I could not verify them: the scene of Blose holding a thick spreadsheet at a counting centre, the named areas where rural results were said to be arriving, and the claims about membership disputes and leadership changes in the party’s local structures. I also left out the closing question, since it was opinion and not reporting. Since this is a local government election, I described the result as one seat and did not call it a provincial seat.

https://x.com/i/status/2118364561057202610

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