South Africans Vote in Municipal Elections as ANC Faces Its Toughest Local Test Since Apartheid

Millions of South Africans went to the polls on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, to elect the councils that run their towns and cities, in municipal elections widely described as the sternest local test yet for the African National Congress, the party that has governed the country since the end of apartheid in 1994. Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time and were scheduled to close at 9 p.m., with Wednesday declared a public holiday to encourage turnout, and voters queued from early morning in cities and townships alike to choose councillors for eight metropolitan municipalities, 44 district councils and 205 local councils.

The stakes go well beyond potholes and water bills, important as those are, because these councils will choose mayors, strike the coalitions that govern most of the country’s big cities, and set the political weather ahead of the next national elections due by 2029 and the ANC leadership contest due in December 2027. This is the story of a vote shaped by dry taps, power cuts and broken trust, fought by a former liberation movement trying to prove it can still govern, and by challengers convinced its time at the top of local government is running out — the story of the South Africa municipal elections 2026 ANC contest.

1. A record electorate heads to the polls

1.1 Polls, stations and special votes

A record 29.2 million people were registered to vote at 23,696 voting stations across the country, according to the Electoral Commission of South Africa, the body that runs the elections. More than 1.4 million special votes had already been cast on Monday and Tuesday, part of a record 2.6 million special-vote applications approved, a sharp increase on the previous local elections in 2021 that points to an electorate determined to be counted even when it cannot reach a polling station on the day itself.

The sheer scale of the exercise is easy to understate: an unprecedented 136,790 candidates, including independents, contested 10,526 council seats, and more than 500 parties put up candidates across nearly 300 municipalities. That fragmentation is itself part of the story, because no party is expected to command a majority of the national vote, and the coalitions formed after the count may matter as much as the count itself.

1.2 What voters are actually choosing

South Africans in this election are voting for councillors, not directly for mayors, a distinction that matters once the results are in. The newly elected councils will choose who leads them, which means a party can win the most votes in a city and still lose the mayor’s office if its rivals combine against it in the council chamber.

That is why the headlines on election night will only tell half the story. The days of bargaining that follow, in council after council, will decide who actually governs Johannesburg, Durban, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and whether the pattern of unstable coalitions that has marked several big cities in recent years continues or finally settles.

2. Why this vote is a verdict on the ANC

2.1 From liberation movement to coalition partner

The ANC led South Africa out of white minority rule in 1994 under Nelson Mandela and governed with large majorities for decades, a history that still shapes how many older voters see the party. But its support has slipped steadily for more than a decade as frustration has grown over corruption, unemployment, crime and the everyday failure of basic services, and the party now fights elections it once expected to win easily.

The decisive break came in the 2024 national and provincial elections, when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994 and was forced into a Government of National Unity with the Democratic Alliance and smaller parties, with Cyril Ramaphosa remaining president. These municipal elections are the first held under that coalition arrangement, and they are being read as an early indicator of voter sentiment before the next national contest.

2.2 The slide since 2021

The ANC fell below 50 percent in municipal polls for the first time in 2021, and recorded about 40 percent in the 2024 national vote. Pre-election surveys suggested its support could fall further this time, potentially below 40 percent and into the mid-30s, a result that would confirm a long decline rather than a single bad election.

An Ipsos survey released before the vote put ANC support at about 30 percent among registered voters who selected a party on a simulated ballot, down from 46 percent in the 2021 local elections according to the survey’s comparison. Polls are not results, and the ANC has outperformed gloomy forecasts before, but the direction of travel in every major survey has been the same: downward, and faster in the cities than in the party’s rural heartlands.

3. The service-delivery issues driving the vote

3.1 Water: Johannesburg’s dry taps

If one image captures why this election feels different, it is the queue at a water tanker rather than at a polling station. In Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub, taps have been dry for at least ten days in some neighbourhoods after a water-system collapse that began on October 19, and a South African Human Rights Commission inquiry released on Monday found that nearly 45 percent of water flowing through the city’s municipal pipelines is lost through leaks and poor infrastructure.

Water shortages, electricity failures, crime, unemployment and poor municipal services were named again and again as the central issues of the campaign, and they cut across party lines. Voters interviewed at polling stations spoke less about ideology than about whether the water runs, the lights stay on and the rubbish is collected, and parties that could not answer those questions found little patience.

3.2 Power, rubbish and roads

The grievances are not confined to Johannesburg. Across the country, residents complain of power cuts, uncollected rubbish, crumbling roads and clinics and libraries that open late or not at all, and opposition parties have built their campaigns around the argument that the ANC has had three decades to fix these problems and has run out of excuses.

The ANC’s answer is that many failures are the product of underinvestment, ageing infrastructure and coalition instability in hung councils, and that its candidates deserve a chance to finish renewal programmes already under way. Voters on Wednesday were, in effect, asked to judge whether that explanation still holds, or whether a change of management at the local level is the only way to get the basics working again.

4. The battleground cities to watch

4.1 Johannesburg: Zille vs the ANC

Johannesburg is the prize every party wants and none can take for granted. The latest Ipsos polling recorded 30 percent support for the Democratic Alliance and 27 percent for the ANC in the city, a gap within the poll’s margin of error, and the DA has fielded former party leader Helen Zille as its mayoral candidate in a high-profile bid to take the economic capital.

The ANC had not confirmed its final mayoral nominee before election day, with incumbent mayor Dada Morero among three shortlisted hopefuls alongside Loyiso Masuku and Frank Chikane. Whoever emerges from the council bargaining will inherit a city whose water crisis has become a national symbol of municipal failure, and whose budget and billing systems have frustrated residents and businesses alike.

4.2 Durban and the MK challenge

In Durban, on the east coast, the first local vote for former President Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party is mounting a strong challenge, after the party’s breakthrough in 2024 when it finished third nationally with 14.5 percent of the vote. MK’s mayoral candidate Mxolisi Phakathi was expected to vote in Umhlanga, KwaZulu-Natal, and the party’s strength in the province makes eThekwini, the municipality that includes Durban, one of the night’s most watched contests.

The MK challenge matters beyond one city because it draws heavily on voters who once voted ANC, and every vote it takes in KwaZulu-Natal weakens the ANC’s claim to still speak for the province where Zuma built his base. If MK wins or forces a coalition in Durban, it will confirm the party as a durable force rather than a one-election protest.

5. The main contenders and their pitches

5.1 ANC: Ramaphosa’s fightback claim

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was due to vote at Hyde Park High School in Johannesburg according to the presidency, rejected predictions of a further slide at a final rally on Sunday. He told supporters that what he was seeing on the campaign trail showed the ANC going higher and higher, and that on November 4 the party would show its critics wrong, a message of defiance aimed as much at his own party’s morale as at the opposition.

The ANC campaign has leaned on its record of delivering houses, grants and services to millions since 1994, and on the argument that only a party with national reach can hold together a coalition government and keep the country’s municipalities funded. Its candidates have promised to fix water and power systems, clean up billing and corruption, and restore the basic competence that voters say has been missing.

5.2 DA, MK and EFF: three different challengers

The Democratic Alliance, the country’s second-largest party and the ANC’s partner in the national unity government, is campaigning as the competent alternative, pointing to municipalities it already runs, such as Cape Town, as evidence that it can deliver services. It is projected in pre-election polling to increase its share, with one survey putting it at about 28 percent nationally and another at 25 percent, up from 22 percent in 2021.

The MK party offers a more radical challenge rooted in Zuma’s appeal and in anger at the ANC’s direction, while the Economic Freedom Fighters, on roughly 10 percent in pre-election polling, pitch themselves as the voice of young and poor voters demanding faster change on land, jobs and public ownership. The three challengers agree on little except that the ANC should lose power locally, which is precisely why the coalition talks after the count promise to be so difficult.

6. Polls, turnout and what the numbers can — and cannot — say

6.1 What Ipsos found before polling day

The Ipsos Khayabus Pulse of the People survey found no party commanding majority support nationally. Among registered voters who selected a party on a simulated ballot, the ANC attracted around 30 percent, followed closely by the DA at about 28 percent, with MK on roughly 12 percent and the EFF on roughly 10 percent, figures that suggest a fragmented result and coalition government in many places.

Those numbers must be read with care. Polls measure sentiment at a moment in time, not the result, and they can miss late swings, differential turnout and the local factors that decide individual municipalities. Analysts also note that national vote shares do not translate directly into control of cities, because seats are won council by council and coalitions are negotiated ward by ward.

6.2 Turnout and the trust gap

One of the most striking pre-election findings was not about any party at all: the latest Ipsos research found that 53 percent of eligible adults surveyed believed no political party represented their views, while 68 percent of registered voters surveyed said politicians could not be trusted. That trust gap is the backdrop to the whole election, and it may matter more than any single party’s score.

If turnout is low, as it was in 2021, the result will reflect the choices of the most motivated voters rather than the whole electorate, and parties will argue afterwards about what the mandate really means. If turnout rises, driven by anger over services or by the record number of special votes, it will signal an electorate that still believes voting can change who runs its town, even if it no longer trusts the politicians asking for its vote.

7. What happens after the votes are counted

7.1 Coalitions, councils and mayors

Final results are expected on Sunday, and then the real contest begins. Coalition rule is already a feature of local government, with 74 of the country’s 254 municipalities under such arrangements, and this election is likely to increase that number as no party wins outright in the biggest cities.

Councils must be constituted, mayors elected and coalition agreements written, and the history of recent years suggests those negotiations can be slow, fractious and sometimes unstable, with small parties holding the balance of power and extracting concessions far beyond their vote share. Residents waiting for water and power repairs will be watching whether the new councils can govern, or whether they spend their first months arguing about who sits where.

7.2 The road to 2029 and the ANC succession

The results are also expected to shape the race to succeed Ramaphosa as ANC leader at the party’s conference in December 2027, because a poor showing will strengthen those in the party who argue for a change of direction, while a better-than-expected result will allow Ramaphosa’s allies to claim vindication. Either way, the municipal results will be read inside the ANC as a judgment on its leadership, not just on its councillors.

Beyond the party, the results will set the political direction ahead of the national elections due by 2029, showing which parties can grow beyond their strongholds and which are fading. A DA advance in Johannesburg, an MK breakthrough in Durban or an ANC recovery in Gauteng would each tell a different story about where South African politics is heading, and the national parties will spend the next two years acting on whichever story the voters have told them.

8. What remains unconfirmed

8.1 Results, margins and city control

At the time of writing, no final results have been announced, and no city can yet be called for any party. The final vote shares, the identity of the winning party in each metropolitan municipality, the turnout figure and the composition of the councils that will choose the mayors all remain unconfirmed until the Electoral Commission announces the results, expected on Sunday.

Pre-election polls, including the Ipsos figures quoted in this article, are surveys of opinion, not results, and they may prove wrong in individual cities. Claims about which party will govern Johannesburg, Durban, Tshwane or Ekurhuleni, and about the size of any party’s national vote share, should be treated as projections until the official count is complete.

8.2 What to watch next

Watch first for the Electoral Commission’s announcement of the final results on Sunday, and then for the coalition negotiations in the hung councils, where the choice of mayor will reveal which alliances are real and which were only campaign talk. Watch too for the ANC’s internal reaction, for the DA’s next move in Johannesburg, and for whether MK consolidates its KwaZulu-Natal base or fades once the campaign noise dies down.

Above all, watch whether the new councils deliver on the basic promises that dominated this campaign: water that runs, power that stays on, rubbish that is collected and streets that are safe. The voters of November 4, 2026, have had their say on who should run their towns and cities. The harder test, for whoever wins, starts the morning after the results are announced.

South Africa’s municipal elections are often treated as a rehearsal for the national contest, but for the millions who queued on Wednesday they were about something more immediate: the council that fixes the tap, keeps the lights on and collects the rubbish. The ANC entered this vote as the party that ended apartheid and built a democracy; it will learn on Sunday whether voters still trust it to run their daily lives, or whether they have decided that a new set of hands should try.

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