THE African National Congress (ANC) expects nothing short of a win in next year’s municipal elections‚ a confident Jessie Duarte said in Port Elizabeth on Sunday.

Addressing ANC councillors who gathered at Pine Lodge at the weekend for the party’s caucus strategic planning retreat‚ the ANC deputy secretary-general said: “We are very confident about the local government elections in 2016 despite the loss we had in Ward 30.”

Ward 30 was a hotly contested ward the party lost to the United Democratic Movement candidate in a recent by-election after the death of the ANC incumbent.

This is in stark contrast to the statement made by Duarte in October when she visited the city and warned branch leaders in Nelson Mandela Bay that if they did not get their act together the metro would fall into the hands of “a funny coalition government” of the Democratic Alliance and National Union of Metalworkers of SA’s United Front next year.