South Africa's ANC hits record low in local vote as infrastructure failures weigh on results
The party that led the anti-apartheid struggle fell to roughly 32% of the vote, while the Democratic Alliance gained ground in key cities.
By Luana Sato ·
South Africa has governed as a democracy since 1994, but its founding party is watching its historical dominance erode. The African National Congress, or ANC, is tracking its lowest score in any election in the country's history.
After 80 percent of the votes from Wednesday's municipal polls were counted, the ANC held nearly 32 percent of the support. This figure marks a steep drop from the 46 percent the party secured in the 2021 municipal elections and the 40 percent it received in the 2024 national polls.
The party's decline stands in sharp contrast to its peak influence. In 2004, at the height of its power following the release of Nelson Mandela, the ANC captured nearly 70 percent of the national vote.
Voters in one of Africa's wealthiest nations prioritized failing water and power supplies in this election. Final results were expected by Sunday, though the electoral dashboard already showed the ANC remaining the largest party despite the historic dip.
Daniel Silke, a political analyst, described the outcome as the most severe result the ANC would have feared. He noted that the loss would undermine the party's ability to exert authority not just locally, but nationally. Silke predicted that opposition parties would be aggressive in the runup to the 2029 general election.
Turnout in this election was estimated at 54.5 percent, with approximately 15.9 million of the 29.2 million registered voters casting ballots. This represents an increase from the 46 percent turnout seen in the 2021 local elections, which were held during the pandemic.
The Democratic Alliance, a pro-business center-right party, placed second with just over 24 percent of the vote. This is an improvement from its nearly 22 percent share in 2021. The DA was set to maintain control of Cape Town and was leading in Johannesburg, the financial capital, where it ran a campaign spearheaded by former leader Helen Zille.
Jacob Zuma's breakaway party, uMkhonto weSizwe, or MKP, contested local elections for the first time and finished third with just over nine percent. The party was leading in eThekwini, the eastern metropolitan municipality that includes the port city of Durban, which is in Zuma's Zulu homeland.
Sanet Solomons, a university lecturer, attributed part of the ANC's loss to the emergence of splinter parties like the MKP. Amanda Gouws, a political science professor, warned that while smaller parties have joined coalitions in the past, those alliances have often been unstable, which may hinder service delivery.
Geordin Hill-Lewis, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, told reporters that the competitive phase of the election is over. He said his party had reached out to other parties in the last 24 hours and would continue those efforts to form governing alliances in cities where no single party holds an outright majority.
