South Africans Vote in Municipal Elections as the ANC Faces a Fresh Test
A record 29.2 million voters were registered for Wednesday's local elections. Polls put the ANC below 40 percent, and Johannesburg, the biggest prize, is up for grabs.
South Africans voted on Wednesday in municipal elections that will test how far the African National Congress has fallen. Voters queued from early morning, and polls closed at 9 p.m. local time. Results are expected on Sunday.
A record 29.2 million people were registered to vote at 23,696 voting stations, according to the Electoral Commission. They chose councils for eight metropolitan municipalities, 44 district councils and 205 local councils. In all, 546 parties fielded nearly 137,000 candidates for 10,526 council seats.
The ANC, the party of Nelson Mandela, fell below 50 percent support for the first time in municipal elections in 2021. It lost its national majority in 2024 and now governs in coalition. Opinion polls suggest it could drop below 40 percent this time. An Ipsos poll put the party at 30 percent, with the Democratic Alliance at 25 percent.
President Cyril Ramaphosa voted in Johannesburg and sounded determined. "I have seen the challenges that we face at local government level, but we are determined to rebuild our local government structure," he said. In his weekly newsletter he had acknowledged that municipal failures have hurt public trust in democratic governance. At the party's final campaign rally, he rejected talk of irreversible decline. "What I'm seeing here is that the ANC is going higher and higher and on the 4th [of November] we will show those naysayers," he told supporters.
What voters are angry about
Unreliable water and electricity, unemployment, crime and a lack of affordable housing ranked among voters' biggest concerns ahead of the election. An auditor-general report awarded clean audits, the highest standard of financial management, to only 39 of South Africa's 257 municipalities for the 2024/25 financial year. None of Gauteng province's three metropolitan municipalities made the list.
"I am hoping things will improve this time, especially where we live. What we need most is better service delivery," said Themba Ntuli, a 47-year-old security guard, after voting. Others worried about what comes after the count. Sabelo Zulu, a 37-year-old engineer, said a tight result could leave many municipalities with hung councils and unstable coalition governments.
With no party large enough to take the ANC's place outright, many cities are heading for coalition governments. Those arrangements have themselves been blamed for failing to deliver basic services, including water and electricity.
Johannesburg is the biggest prize
Control of Johannesburg, South Africa's commercial hub, is the largest prize and is still up for grabs. The Democratic Alliance has put up its 75-year-old former leader, Helen Zille, for mayor. Opinion polls project her winning the most votes but falling short of a majority, with a News24 poll putting her at 36 percent. That would leave her needing coalition partners, possibly including the ANC itself. Zille told the Associated Press that the ANC was in free fall.
The city has cycled through a string of mayors since 2021 as successive coalition governments collapsed, while residents sometimes endure weeks without water or electricity and motorists contend with broken traffic lights and pothole-riddled roads. Zille's campaign leaned into the decay, including wading through large potholes and snorkelling in a mud-filled trench flooded by a burst municipal water pipe.
Other metro areas to watch include Tshwane, home to the administrative capital Pretoria, and eThekwini, which includes the port city of Durban and where former President Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe party is strong. The DA is heavily favoured to retain control of Cape Town.
What comes next
The outcome will help shape the political landscape ahead of the 2029 national election. It could also influence the succession battle inside the ANC as Ramaphosa nears the end of his term as party leader in 2027, with the party's leadership conference due in December of that year.
Final results are expected on Sunday, November 8. The week after will be the real election: the coalition talks and mayoral bargaining that decide whether Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and eThekwini are governed or merely occupied.
