South Africa Local Elections 2026: ANC Leads Narrowly as Early Results Show Big Losses in Johannesburg

South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), is leading by a very small margin in the early results of the country’s local elections — but the numbers tell a story of a party that has lost much of its old strength.

With about one in five voting districts counted on Thursday morning, the ANC had about 31 to 32 percent of the national vote, just ahead of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), on about 30 to 31 percent. The gap between the two biggest parties is only around one percentage point, and the final result could still change a lot as counting continues in the big cities.

The election, held on Wednesday 4 November 2026, chose the councils that run South Africa’s towns and cities for the next five years. More than 10,500 council seats were contested across the country. The full results are expected on Sunday, and the early numbers already point to a new political reality: no single party is likely to win control of several big cities, which means weeks of coalition talks lie ahead.

What the early results show

The first results came in overnight after voting stations closed on Wednesday. By 0424 GMT on Thursday, with around 12 percent of votes counted, the Electoral Commission’s figures showed the ANC on about 32 percent and the DA on about 31 percent, according to Reuters.

A later snapshot, with about 20 percent of voting districts reporting, put the ANC on 31.39 percent and the DA on 30.24 percent, according to figures shown at the Independent Electoral Commission’s Results Operations Centre in Johannesburg.

The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, led by former President Jacob Zuma, was in third place nationally with about 5.6 percent of the vote. Smaller parties, including the Patriotic Alliance and ActionSA, were also making gains in several areas.

Turnout in the districts counted so far was about 53.5 percent of registered voters.

But the early count comes with a big warning. Only a small share of voting districts had reported in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the two provinces that are home to some of South Africa’s biggest cities. That means the national picture could look very different once Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town have fully reported.

A sharp fall from the ANC’s old dominance

Whatever the final numbers, one thing is already clear: the ANC’s share of the vote has fallen sharply from where it used to be.

In the last local elections, in 2021, the ANC won 46 percent of the vote. That was already a big drop from the 62 percent it won in 2011. If the early 2026 numbers hold, the party will have fallen by about another 14 percentage points in five years.

Projections from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa’s leading research organisation, suggested the final result could be about 32 percent for the ANC and 26 percent for the DA. The CSIR gave its projections to the public broadcaster, the SABC, based on about 11.5 percent of voting districts. It stressed that these are statistical estimates based on past voting patterns, not official results, and they are updated as more districts report.

The ANC has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president. For most of that time it won elections by large margins. The fall to around a third of the vote in local elections would be another milestone in its long decline.

The slide is not new. In the 2024 national election, the ANC lost its outright majority in parliament for the first time since 1994 and had to form a Government of National Unity with other parties, including the DA. The local elections are the first big test of public opinion since then.

Johannesburg: the ANC’s biggest shock

The most striking early result came from Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and its economic heart.

With about 9 percent of votes counted in the city by 10am on Thursday, the DA had a commanding lead with 40.71 percent of the vote, according to News24’s election dashboard, which is linked to the Electoral Commission’s figures. The ANC was second on just 17.10 percent, followed by ActionSA on 15.41 percent, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on 6.37 percent and the MK Party on 4.42 percent.

The DA’s share was nearly 15 percentage points above the dashboard’s comparison baseline, while the ANC was almost 17 points below it — a dramatic swing in a city the ANC once dominated.

Political analyst Tara Roos told Inside Politics that the ANC was losing votes badly in Johannesburg, including in Soweto, one of its traditional strongholds. At one voting district in Dlamini, Soweto, she said the ANC’s support had fallen from 37 percent to 18 percent.

“When we look at Tshwane, when we look at Ekurhuleni, when we look at the City of Joburg, the ANC is not leading in any of them, and that is shocking,” Roos said.

Johannesburg matters far beyond its own borders. It is home to around 4.8 million people and generates a large share of South Africa’s wealth. The city council has already been unstable, run by a series of fragile coalitions since no party won a majority there in 2021. Another hung council would mean more negotiations — and possibly more instability.

The battle for the big cities

The early results painted a mixed picture across South Africa’s metros, with different parties leading in different cities.

In Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg and Pretoria, the DA was leading with 39.3 percent of the vote in an early snapshot, followed by the ANC on 18.6 percent and ActionSA on 15.2 percent. That is a remarkable turnaround in the country’s richest province, where the ANC once ruled without serious challenge.

In Tshwane, the municipality that includes the capital city Pretoria, an early snapshot showed ActionSA leading with about 28 percent, followed by the ANC on about 27 percent and the DA on about 21 percent. ActionSA is a relatively new party, founded in 2020 by former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, and a lead in the capital would be a major breakthrough for it.

In KwaZulu-Natal, the province on the east coast, the MK Party was leading with about 32.7 percent, followed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on 22.3 percent and the DA on 12.9 percent. The MK Party, launched by Jacob Zuma before the 2024 national election, has its strongest support in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province.

The DA was holding its traditional stronghold in the Western Cape, leading with 56.51 percent after about a third of voting districts had been counted. The ANC was second on 11.67 percent, just ahead of the Patriotic Alliance on 10.79 percent. The Western Cape includes Cape Town, which the DA has governed for years.

In the Eastern Cape, the ANC remained ahead with about 48 percent, compared with the DA’s 20 percent — one of the few provinces where the governing party still holds a clear lead.

Early projections also suggested a DA lead in Nelson Mandela Bay, the metro around Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), where the party was forecast to win about 40.7 percent against the ANC’s 29 percent and the EFF’s 5.4 percent. In Mangaung, around Bloemfontein, the model projected the ANC on 38.3 percent, followed by the DA on 31.1 percent and the EFF on 8.4 percent.

All of these figures are early snapshots from different stages of counting, and they are expected to change as more voting districts report.

Why voters are turning away from the ANC

The vote was widely expected to see the ANC lose ground, and the early results suggest that prediction was right.

According to Reuters, many voters have been punishing the ANC for high crime rates, corruption scandals, and failing basic services such as water and electricity. These are the issues that shape daily life in South African towns and cities — taps that run dry, power cuts, rubbish not collected, and streets that are not safe.

Political analyst Sophie Mokoena said the early results showed growing dissatisfaction among voters, who are increasingly willing to support alternatives to parties that have failed to deliver on their promises.

“The story of this election is that South Africa is changing, and South Africans are beginning to send a message,” she said. “If you don’t perform, if you don’t meet our expectations, if you don’t deliver on your promises to us, if you don’t take us seriously, if you don’t respect our votes, we will do what is right and look for alternatives.”

Mokoena pointed to persistent water shortages, electricity problems and poor waste management in municipalities as the issues driving voters away from the governing party.

The frustration is easy to understand. South Africa’s municipalities are responsible for the services people use every day — water, electricity, refuse collection, local roads and housing. When those services fail, voters blame the party in charge of the council. In many towns and cities, residents have spent years dealing with water cuts and power outages, even as corruption scandals involving municipal officials have made headlines.

What happens next: coalitions and compromise

With several municipalities likely to end up with no party winning an outright majority, the next stage of the election will be coalition negotiations.

Once the results are officially declared — expected on Sunday — parties will have two weeks to form coalition governments in the hung councils. That means days of bargaining over who becomes mayor, which parties share power, and what policies they agree on.

Roos suggested that in some municipalities, an arrangement similar to the national Government of National Unity could emerge, with the ANC and DA working together. She said the two parties could prioritise stability while trying to keep the MK Party and EFF out of governing coalitions.

But Mokoena warned that coalition negotiations could create further instability if parties put their own power ahead of service delivery. South Africa has recent experience of this problem: several councils formed after the 2021 elections collapsed into infighting, with mayors changed repeatedly and services suffering as a result.

She also said the ANC would have to think carefully about its existing partnerships and could not simply abandon its coalition partners without renegotiating power-sharing arrangements.

For ordinary South Africans, the question is whether the new councils will work better than the old ones. Hung councils can bring fresh ideas and closer scrutiny of spending, but they can also mean months of political wrangling while broken water pipes and power failures wait for attention.

Why this election matters beyond the cities

Local elections do not usually attract as much attention as national ones, but this vote is being watched closely for what it says about South Africa’s political future.

First, the result will shape the landscape ahead of the 2029 national election. If the ANC finishes on around a third of the vote, it will enter the next national campaign from its weakest position ever, and the question of who can challenge it — the DA, the MK Party, or a coalition of smaller parties — will become central to South African politics.

Second, the outcome could influence the succession battle inside the ANC. President Cyril Ramaphosa is nearing the end of his term as party leader in 2027, and the jostling to replace him is already under way. A poor local election result would add pressure on the party’s leadership and could sharpen the contest between rival factions.

Third, the election is a test of whether South Africa’s democracy can deliver working local government through coalitions. Since 2021, coalition politics has become the norm in many cities, and voters are watching to see whether parties can put aside rivalries and govern together — or whether the next five years will bring more of the instability that has plagued councils like Johannesburg.

The early results also carry a message for every party in the country: South African voters are no longer loyal to one party for life. They are willing to switch, to try new parties, and to punish those that fail to deliver. That is a healthy sign for democracy, even if it makes governing harder.

Frequently asked questions

When were South Africa’s local elections held?

Voting took place on Wednesday 4 November 2026. Voting stations opened at 7:00am, and results began to come in overnight. The full official results are expected to be declared on Sunday.

Who is leading in the early results?

The ANC leads nationally with about 31 to 32 percent of the vote counted so far, just ahead of the DA on about 30 to 31 percent. The MK Party is third on about 5.6 percent. These are early figures and the final result could change.

How many seats were contested?

A total of 10,526 council seats were contested across South Africa’s municipalities.

What happened in the last local elections in 2021?

The ANC won 46 percent of the vote in 2021, down from 62 percent in 2011. Several big cities, including Johannesburg, ended up with no overall winner and were run by coalitions.

What is a hung council?

A hung council is one where no single party wins more than half the seats. Parties must then negotiate a coalition — an agreement to govern together — or one party must govern with the support of smaller parties.

What happens after the results are declared?

Parties have two weeks from the declaration of results to form coalition governments in municipalities where no party won a majority. If they cannot agree, councils can become deadlocked.

Conclusion

The early results of South Africa’s 2026 local elections point to a country in political transition. The ANC, the party that has governed since the end of apartheid, is still narrowly ahead nationally — but on about a third of the vote, far below the dominance it once enjoyed. The DA is close behind and ahead in Gauteng, while the MK Party leads in KwaZulu-Natal and ActionSA is challenging in the capital.

The final results, expected on Sunday, will show whether these early patterns hold. But whatever the final numbers, the direction is clear: South African voters are spreading their support more widely than ever before, and the era of one-party dominance at local level is over.

What matters now is what happens after the counting. If the parties can form stable coalitions that fix the water, power and waste services people depend on, the election will have done its job. If instead the next few weeks bring the same political infighting that has troubled many councils since 2021, voters will have reason to feel that their message — deliver, or lose our support — has not yet been heard.

Sources

• Reuters, “ANC narrowly leads DA in early South Africa municipal election results” (via 985 The River): https://985theriver.com/2026/11/04/anc-narrowly-leads-da-in-early-south-africa-municipal-election-results/
• Inside Politics, “ANC narrowly leads DA nationally as early election results show major losses in Joburg”: https://insidepolitic.co.za/anc-narrowly-leads-da-nationally-as-early-election-results-show-major-losses-in-joburg/
• Political.org, “ANC Narrowly Leads DA in Early South Africa Municipal Election Results as Vote Share Falls Sharply”: https://political.org/2026/11/04/anc-narrowly-leads-da-in-early-south-africa-municipal-election-results-as-vote-share-falls-sharply/

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.