South Africa holds local elections as ANC faces further drop in support
South Africa is holding municipal elections in which the African National Congress (ANC), the former ruling party, may lose even more votes. An Ipsos poll puts its support at 30%.
South Africans are voting on Wednesday in municipal elections to choose leaders for the country's nearly 300 municipalities, which handle basic services such as water, electricity and refuse collection. The vote is seen as a test for the African National Congress (ANC), the former ruling party, whose support has fallen over the years amid anger over corruption, unemployment and crime.
A shrinking base
The ANC won 70% of the vote in the 2004 general election, but its share fell to 40% two decades later. In the most recent national election it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994, when apartheid ended. An Ipsos poll puts its support at 30%, compared with 46% in the 2021 local elections. President Cyril Ramaphosa denies the party is in a downward spiral and told supporters at Sunday's final rally that the doubters would be proven wrong.
The same poll points to a slight rise for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), especially in Johannesburg, from 22% to 25%. DA leader Helen Zille, a former Cape Town mayor, is running for mayor of Johannesburg and her campaign, which has included swimming in giant potholes, has drawn considerable attention.
Residents' frustration
In Alexandra, a township near Johannesburg, residents complain of piles of rubbish and problems with electricity and water. Some young people said they would not vote, while 18-year-old Sanele Ntombela, a first-time voter, hopes for change. Residents of Soweto also cite water and power outages.
Auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke has reported that only 39 municipalities received the top clean audit rating between 2024 and 2025. None of Gauteng province's three metropolitan cities was among them. Analysts expect coalition governments to continue, with cooperation between the ANC and DA possibly becoming a common model. More than 29 million people are registered to vote, but turnout, particularly among the young, keeps declining. The electoral commission has seven days to announce results, and parties then have 14 days to form governing structures.
