The African National Congress secured roughly 30.8 percent of the vote in South Africa’s local elections, marking a fifteen percentage point decline from 2021 according to nos.nl.
Stellenbosch and Urban Metros Deliver Heavy Blow
Nos.nl reports that the party which liberated the country from apartheid over thirty years ago remains the largest nationally, but lost its grip on six primary metropolises. For a long time, the party of late president Nelson Mandela was the obvious choice for most South Africans. The official results of the local elections were announced on Sunday early in the evening.
Johannesburg stands as a primary symbol of this municipal deterioration. Residents face chronic power outages, uncollected street refuse, widespread water shortages, and escalating crime rates. James Ntsepo, manager of the Central Taxi Rank, told NRC – Nieuws, achtergronden en onderzoeksjournalistiek that municipal management has neglected basic infrastructure since 2008, leaving the bustling transport hub to fall apart. The transport hub serves about 6,000 minibus taxis daily, making it one of the busiest transit hubs in the country, and minibus taxis running fixed routes are the most used form of public transport in South Africa. Ntsepo’s left thumb showed ink indicating he had voted on November 4 in the local elections, and while he used to support the ANC, he stated they have lost his vote.
Tasneem Essop, a political analyst at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, stated that a large portion of municipalities are in crisis and South Africans view the ANC as part of the problem.
Residents also feel simply ignored, with inhabitants protesting in late October against ongoing water shortages that left them without tap water for ten days, alongside a lack of water pressure and barely any street lighting in areas like the Alexandra township, while asking what happens if a fire breaks out.
Essop noted that the hardest electoral blow hit the ANC in cities because urban residents encounter different political parties more easily and are therefore less loyal to a single party.
Democratic Alliance Gains Ground in Johannesburg
The Democratic Alliance has achieved a majority in Johannesburg, where the party ran a campaign with a white mayoral candidate. According to NRC – Nieuws, achtergronden en onderzoeksjournalistiek, the DA ran a heavily funded campaign utilizing traditional and social media, led by veteran politician Helen Zille. The 75-year-old politician ran a notable campaign message to solve Johannesburg’s problems, featuring stunts where she went snorkeling in a flooded road pothole and rowed a boat through a flooded street in the Soweto township, with footage going viral. Although the DA became the largest party in Johannesburg, it did not win enough votes to take charge immediately and must form a coalition. It is remarkable that the DA became the largest party in Johannesburg given that the city is inhabited mostly by poorer Black South Africans who traditionally vote for the ANC, whereas the DA is still viewed by many as a white party focused on the middle class and wealthy.
Many South Africans simply want better governance, complaining in their neighborhoods about cronyism in job distribution, corruption, and councilors performing poorly, with research showing only 39 out of 257 municipalities in South Africa have clean bookkeeping, many of which are located in the Western Cape province governed by the DA.
Besides the DA, other parties grew, such as MK, the party formed by former president Jacob Zuma in 2023 after splitting from the ANC, which received many votes in Durban. A shift was already visible during the 2024 national elections when the ANC lost its majority for the first time since the country became a democratic nation and began governing in a unity government including the DA.
/s3/static.nrc.nl/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/06152435/071126BUI_2038109022_1.jpg "Photo: NRC")
MarketScreener Nederland notes that with seventy-two percent of votes counted, the ANC held about thirty-two percent while the DA stood near twenty-four percent. Lisette IJssel de Schepper, chief economist at the Bureau for Economic Research, stated via MarketScreener Nederland that the central economic issue remains whether these results produce stable municipal leadership and improved business conditions.
MarketScreener Nederland also noted that at 06:55 GMT, the rand traded at 16.5275 against the US currency, down 0.3 percent from the previous close, while the US dollar gained more than 0.3 percent against a basket of currencies driven by safe-haven demand after a global sell-off of AI stocks, and South Africa’s benchmark government bond maturing in 2035 traded marginally lower in early trade with its yield rising 4.5 basis points to 8.33 percent.
Nieuws.nl reports that the national currency, the South African rand, weakened slightly against a stronger dollar as municipal vote counting progressed through the week. President Cyril Ramaphosa stated that voter choice remains healthy for democracy and called for constructive cooperation among parties in the interest of citizens.
Political analysts think the ANC realizes it must be more accountable for its policies and show actual results, a lesson ANC chairman Fikile Mbalula called out before the weekend.
