South Africa’s African National Congress has suffered its worst electoral result since the end of apartheid, winning just 30.76% of the vote in last week’s municipal elections, final results declared on Sunday showed.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) declared the 4 November polls free and fair as it confirmed the figures, which leave the party that has governed South Africa since 1994 facing weeks of difficult coalition negotiations to keep control of the country’s biggest cities.
The ANC’s share fell sharply from the 45.59% it won in the last municipal elections in 2021. The Democratic Alliance (DA), the main opposition party, finished second with 24.64%, up from 21.62% five years ago, while former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party took 9.76% in its first municipal contest, placing third. The Economic Freedom Fighters won 6.22%.
In seats, the ANC took 3,246 council seats, the DA 1,695 and the MK Party 785, according to the IEC’s published national results.
The damage was sharpest in the big cities. The ANC lost its majority in six of the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities and failed to win outright control of any of them. In Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, the DA won about 35% of the vote against roughly 20% for the ANC. In eThekwini, which includes the coastal city of Durban, the MK Party emerged as the leading force with about 40%. The DA retained an outright majority in Cape Town, its long-held stronghold.
Turnout was about 52% of the 29.2 million registered voters — around 14.9 million ballots cast — higher than the 45.9% recorded in 2021, suggesting voters turned out in greater numbers to punish a party blamed for failing services, from water and power cuts to potholed roads and unreliable rubbish collection.
The ANC itself acknowledged the scale of the defeat. “We did not do well in this election,” the party said in a statement after the results, as it prepared for coalition talks across councils where no party won a majority. More than 100 councils returned no outright winner.
Under South African law, newly elected councils must hold their first sittings within 14 days of the results being declared, forcing rapid deal-making. The ANC’s National Executive Committee is due to meet on Thursday, 12 November, to discuss the outcome and the party’s approach to the negotiations.
The result extends a decline that began when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority in the 2024 general election and was forced into a national unity government. The municipal vote is the clearest sign yet that the party’s dominance, built on its role in ending apartheid, no longer guarantees it power — even in the towns and cities it has governed for three decades.
Sources: Reuters, “South Africa’s ANC takes a beating in municipal vote, setting up tough coalition talks” (https://985theriver.com/2026/11/08/south-africas-anc-battered-by-local-election-losses-ahead-of-coalition-talks/); African News Agency, “ANC remains largest party as fragmented results put coalition government in spotlight” (https://africannewsagency.com/anc-remains-largest-party-as-fragmented-results-put-coalition-government-in-spotlight/).
