The newly-formed Cope has secured its first public representatives, but it was the Democratic Alliance that emerged from Wednesday's by-elections with a grin from ear to political ear.

In the Western Cape, where the ANC's hold on power is most tenuous, the DA won nine of the 18 wards previously held by the ruling party.

Four of the nine were contested by both the ANC and Cope.

"There's one simple message from yesterday's by-elections in the
Western Cape... that the DA is on track to win this province," said party chief executive Ryan Coetzee.

He said if the DA was not going to achieve an outright majority in next year's general election, it was certainly on track to be the biggest party in the Western Cape "by quite some distance".

The ANC said while it was pleased with its wins elsewhere in the country, the Western Cape results posed "a significant challenge" to the party.

ANC Western Cape chairman Mcebisis Skwatsha said the party would ask the Constitutional Court to nullify the results in wards where the Independent Electoral Commission had turned away a dozen of its candidates who did not meet the registration deadline.

"The reason we are asking the Constitutional Court to intervene in this matter is because the ANC's exclusion from contesting the 12 by-elections disenfranchises tens of thousands of voters," Skwatsha said.

All 12 seats -- eight in the City of Cape Town and four in Cedarberg --were formerly held by the ANC.

Skwatsha said the party respected the rules governing elections.

"However, for the ANC to be prevented from contesting by-elections -- in wards previously held by the party -- distorts the political landscape," he said.

The IEC said ANC and the DA each won 11 seats nationwide in the polls, with ten seats going to independent candidates, all of whom Cope has claimed as its members.

The party was unable to contest the polls under its name because the name has not yet been registered by the IEC.

The IEC said five wards nationwide went to the Independent Democrats and four -- in KwaZulu-Natal -- were retained by the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Voter turnout varied between 8.45 percent and 59.26 percent, with an average of 26.42 percent.

In the Free State, two wards went to the ANC.

In Gauteng, one went to the DA and two to the ANC.

In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC and IFP each took four seats.

The ANC won the only seat contested in the Northern Cape.

In the Western Cape, 27 by-elections took place.

Of the eight wards contested in the City of Cape Town, two went to the DA and six, the IEC said, to independent candidates.

In the rest of the province, the ANC took three seats, the DA seven, the ID five and Cope independents four.

University of the Witwatersrand political analyst Susan Booysen said Cope would probably have made more of an impact if its name had been on the ballot paper.

She said if there was one victor in the by-elections, it was the opposition as a whole.

The results signalled a loosening up in the party-political landscape.

"This is definitely a new game," she said. "The chance could be that these by-elections are a harbinger of things to come."

Cope executive member Philip Dexter told businessmen in Cape Town on Thursday that the ANC was "locked in the past and is supported by defensive, race-based voting".

"In spite of significant intimidation in some wards, we are very pleased with Cope's showing," he said.

ID Western Cape chairman Sakkie Jenner said perhaps the most successful victory against the ANC was in Drakenstein (Paarl), where the ID and the DA won two wards each and Cope the fifth.

This meant power in the council could be wrested from the hands of the ANC.

"This change of power in the Western Cape's second biggest municipality will serve as more confirmation that the ANC has no chance of governing the Western Cape next year," he said.