What changed
South Africa heads into local government elections on 4 November 2026 with turnout falling, party support splintering and municipalities increasingly dependent on coalitions. Polls put turnout at roughly 47% to 48.8%, while none gives a party an outright national majority.
Why it matters
The election could decide who controls Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, where water shortages, power outages, sewage spills and damaged roads have made local government failures hard to ignore. The ANC won just 33.6% in Johannesburg, 34.31% in Tshwane and 38.19% in Ekurhuleni in 2021. DA-led coalitions took power after that vote, but ANC-led coalitions later replaced them.
That makes the result less about a clean handover than about who can assemble the next governing arrangement. The ANC, DA, EFF, MK party and SACP are competing for a field in which smaller parties may hold the deciding votes. The ANC’s support is expected to fall to between 22% and 32%, while polling disagrees on whether the ANC or DA will finish ahead.
The deeper warning is turnout. Participation fell from 89.3% in 1999 to 58.6% in 2024, and current estimates suggest another sharp drop. If that happens, the DA could benefit as dissatisfied ANC voters stay home. But the central uncertainty remains simple: actual turnout, party results and the coalitions that follow will only become clear after voting.
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