JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 6 — The African National Congress held a narrow lead over the Democratic Alliance in early counting from South Africa‘s local government elections, while the opposition party dominated the country’s metropolitan municipalities, setting up another round of coalition bargaining across 257 councils.
With about 15 percent of ballots counted early Thursday, the electoral commission put the ANC at 31.76 percent and the DA at 31.23 percent. The governing party led in six of the nine provinces — North West, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Free State — while the DA was ahead in Gauteng and the Western Cape, and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, led by former president Jacob Zuma, led in KwaZulu-Natal.
The metropolitan picture was sharper. The DA was ahead in its Cape Town stronghold and also in Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay and Mangaung. In Johannesburg, the party held 40.7 percent against just over 17 percent for the ANC with about 9 percent of voting districts declared. Helen Zille, who served as DA federal leader from 2007 to 2015 and mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009, is the party‘s mayoral candidate in Johannesburg.
Johannesburg was the central prize. Outstanding consumer bills and other debt owed to the municipality amount to about R72 billion ($4.5 billion), up from R15 billion a decade ago, while the city has struggled to pay utilities including Eskom and Rand Water. Refuse collection has been irregular, drinking water supply unreliable, and by some estimates nearly half of treated water is lost to leaking pipes. Crime, corruption and unemployment were the issues voters raised most often during the campaign.
Wednesday’s poll was the sixth local election since the end of apartheid in 1994 and the first since the ANC lost its thirty-year parliamentary majority in 2024 and entered a national coalition government. More than 29.2 million people were registered to vote at nearly 23,700 stations, with 10,526 council seats at stake. The day was declared a public holiday, and special voting was held on Monday and Tuesday for those unable to reach a station on election day.
No party was expected to win an outright majority in Johannesburg. The DA has ruled out working with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party and the Economic Freedom Fighters, leaving a coalition with the ANC or with smaller parties as the most likely route. Former president Thabo Mbeki warned after voting that political fragmentation would produce more hung municipalities. The commission has seven days to declare the final results, after which parties have fourteen days to negotiate and establish council governments.
The vote also unfolded against a shift in trade relations with Washington. The Trump administration moved this week to remove South Africa, the largest beneficiary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, from the duty-free programme starting January 1, 2027. South Africa argues that less than 1 percent of its total goods exports enter the United States under AGOA, so analysts expect little direct effect on the ballot, though President Cyril Ramaphosa called the decision “a negative for us” and said his government would pursue a bilateral trade agreement and diversify export markets.
Analysts read the municipal contest as an early test of governing performance ahead of the 2029 general election, and as further evidence that coalition politics has become the normal condition of South African governance rather than an exception.
— VGMG Africa Geopolitics & Macro Desk