South Africa’s ANC falls to 30.76% in municipal election

The national share marks a steep reversal

South Africa’s African National Congress remained the country’s largest party in the Nov. 4 local-government elections, but it won 30.76% of the vote, according to results reported by SAnews from the Electoral Commission of South Africa. The Democratic Alliance came second with 24.64%.

The ANC’s share was 14.83 percentage points below its 45.59% in the 2021 local elections, a comparison reported by Reuters. That is a fall in vote share, not a measure of how individual voters switched between parties. The ANC remains first in the aggregate, but each municipality has its own council, where local results determine control.

Municipal elections choose representatives for local councils, which oversee services residents encounter directly. They do not elect the national parliament or change South Africa’s national coalition government, formed after the ANC lost its parliamentary majority in 2024.

Service delivery shaped the local contest

The election was fought over hundreds of councils rather than one national executive. The Associated Press reported that voters’ concerns included water and electricity outages, broken roads and streetlights, and uncollected rubbish. Reuters also described failures in basic services as one factor behind the ANC’s long decline in local elections.

The numbers alone do not prove why individual voters chose another party. They do show the scale of the governing party’s weakened position in the local arena: the DA followed with nearly a quarter of the national vote, while the remaining share was divided among the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, ActionSA and many smaller parties and independents, according to SAnews.

City councils now face coalition bargaining

A national vote share does not itself determine who becomes mayor in each city. Where no party has enough council seats to govern alone, parties must negotiate agreements that allocate leadership and decision-making. Reuters reported that coalition talks will follow the count; those deals had not been settled in the reporting reviewed.

The AP reported that the DA finished ahead of the ANC in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Ekurhuleni. In Johannesburg, Reuters said the DA’s roughly 35% to the ANC’s 20% put it in a stronger position, but ActionSA’s leader said his party would not support a DA mayoral bid by Helen Zille. That leaves bargaining power with smaller parties and means the national totals are only a starting point for who will govern the largest cities.

A declared result still has one local exception

The IEC declared the elections concluded as free and fair on Sunday, but its chair’s speech also said a re-vote would be held at one voting district in Ward 3 of Siyancuma Municipality, Northern Cape, after ballot papers were destroyed before counting. The speech gives no date for the re-vote.

There is also a material difference between two government-published tallies. SAnews reports the ANC at 30.76% with 3,246 council seats; the chair’s transcript on gov.za lists 30.89% and 3,164 seats. Reuters and Mail & Guardian agree with the 30.76% share, so that is the figure used here; the seat totals are omitted until the discrepancy can be reconciled.