South Africa’s ANC falls to 30.76% in local elections, its lowest municipal share

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela that has governed since the end of apartheid in 1994, won just 30.76% of the vote in local elections held on Wednesday, 4 November, according to final results from the Electoral Commission of South Africa announced on Sunday, 8 November.

The ANC remains the largest party, with 3,246 council seats, but it won outright control of only 53 municipalities.

How the others did

The Democratic Alliance (DA) came second with 24.64% of the vote and 1,695 seats. It kept an outright majority in Cape Town and was the most voted-for party in Johannesburg, Tshwane, which includes Pretoria, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay. ActionSA won 5.67% and 313 seats.

The number of hung councils, where no party has a majority, rose to 142 from 70 in 2021, so coalition talks will decide who runs many towns and cities.

A long decline

The ANC’s share of the municipal vote has fallen steadily: from 62% in 2011 to 46% in 2021, and now to under a third. In the 2024 national election it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time and formed a coalition government with the DA and other parties.

What’s next

New councils must elect mayors in the coming weeks. In the hung councils, including several of the big metropolitan cities, parties will have to bargain for coalitions, which in recent years have often proved unstable.