ANC Wins South Africa Local Polls But Posts all-Time Election low

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress won municipal elections but suffered its biggest ever electoral setback, final results showed on Saturday. The long-powerful ANC remains the country’s largest party but has garnered only 32.5% of the vote. Disappointed voters have moved to the Democratic Alliance, the MK party and other smaller lists.

The ANC’s performance is down about 14 percentage points from its 2021 local election results. The party has not won an outright majority in any of the eight metropolitan municipalities. But it won four of them, including Johannesburg, Mangaung and Buffalo City.

The second-largest party is the centre-right Democratic Alliance, which won roughly 22.9% of the vote. The party finished top in Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane and has won a majority in Cape Town.

The MK party of former president Jacob Zuma finished third nationally with over 9.9% of the vote and topped the Thekwini metro. The findings suggest a fractured political landscape. The results are out and now parties will have to participate in coalition talks to establish governing coalitions. The results will trigger complicated coalition negotiations to create the alliances needed to rule in several big cities where absolute majorities proved elusive.

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