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Johannesburg - Six political parties and six independent candidates will be contesting Wednesday's by-elections being held in six provinces yet none are being contested by the country's second biggest opposition parties the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Eleven wards are up for grabs around the country with almost a year to go until the 2016 local government elections.
Of the 11, nine were previously represented by the African National Congress and two by the Democratic Alliance. Three of the wards were uncontested.
Political analyst Steven Friedman pointed out that since the May general elections the EFF has only contested two or three by-elections and the party did "shockingly".
"You can say they are about to unfold a mighty machine etcetera but there isn't terribly much evidence," he said.
"The point is they clearly haven't taken a principle decision not to contest by-elections because they have contested a few of them. So it does tend to suggest that the EFF is not going to do very well in next year's elections unless there is some great organisation surprise."
Friedman said if the EFF wanted to make an impact in the local government elections it would have made sure it had candidates who would make an impact in the by-elections.
''The evidence I see in front of me is not telling a good story for the EFF," he said.
By-elections could work in favour of smaller political parties and could be an opportunity for those parties to do better than they did in the general elections.
If smaller parties were able to mobilise their supporters to come out during a by-election, while the supporters of the majority party in that particular ward were sitting at home, then obviously it would favour them, he said.
''We would expect by-elections to show smaller parties doing better than they going to do in a general election and therefore if the bigger parties are doing well in by-elections one would expect them to do just as well in the 2016 elections."
