Latest
In The NewsVideo reports & articles
Newstro / In The News
In The News

South Africa’s ANC Plunges to 30.7% in Historic Municipal Election Collapse

Cyril Ramaphosa’s party lost control across all major metros as John Steenhuisen’s DA and Jacob Zuma’s MK party surge into coalition power.

Article
Read the story
In The News · Read the story
Default In The News section card showing stylized headline typography over newsprint background.
Default section visual · Newstro
Share this story

The latest

November 8, 2026, at 2:30 p.m. South Africa Standard Time (7:30 a.m. Eastern time).

South Africa’s governing African National Congress has suffered the most devastating electoral collapse in its 114-year history, plummeting to just 30.76 percent of the national vote in nationwide municipal elections and losing its majority across every single major metropolitan government in the country.

Official certified results released by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) in Pretoria confirmed that the party of Nelson Mandela won only 3,246 council seats nationwide—a staggering decline of nearly 15 percentage points from the already battered 45.6 percent it recorded in the 2021 municipal elections. The historic collapse marks an acceleration of the political decline that saw the ANC lose its parliamentary majority in the 2024 national elections.

The centrist Democratic Alliance (DA) solidified its standing as the primary opposition, claiming 24.64 percent of the vote and emerging as the largest party in multiple industrial and commercial capitals. Former President Jacob Zuma’s populist uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party made a formidable local debut, securing 9.76 percent nationally and taking commanding positions across KwaZulu-Natal and eThekwini (Durban). Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) garnered 6.22 percent, while ActionSA took 5.67 percent.

Complete shutout across South Africa's economic hubs

The municipal results represent a comprehensive repudiation of the ANC's governance across South Africa's economic engine rooms. In Johannesburg, Tshwane (Pretoria), and Ekurhuleni, the ANC was thoroughly routed, finishing second or third behind the DA and MK.

Out of 257 municipal councils across nine provinces, fewer than a quarter produced outright single-party majorities, plunging the vast majority of local governments into "hung council" status. Under South African municipal law, newly elected councillors have a strict 14-day statutory window to negotiate coalition pacts and elect executive mayors and council speakers, setting off chaotic, high-stakes bargaining between bitter ideological rivals.

Speaking at the party’s Luthuli House headquarters, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula openly conceded the severity of the loss, describing the election outcome as "catastrophic" and acknowledging that South African voters delivered an unambiguous rebuke to the ruling leadership.

Political analysts attributed the historic plunge to decades of deteriorating public services, chronic municipal water outages, rolling electricity blackouts, double-digit unemployment exceeding 33 percent, and rampant corruption within municipal tender boards.

Internal revolt looms for Cyril Ramaphosa

The collapse has placed President Cyril Ramaphosa in his most precarious political position since taking office in 2018. Rival ANC factions, particularly those aligned with left-wing populist currents and provincial barons who lost their patronage bases, have already begun demanding an early national elective conference to oust the party's top leadership.

Ramaphosa's fragile national "Government of National Unity" coalition with the DA in Parliament is now under intense strain as local party branches clash over whether to share mayoral power with their national partners or forge desperate alliances with radical breakaway factions.

With local governance in South Africa's largest economic corridors hanging in the balance, the coming fortnight of coalition wrangling will determine whether basic water, sanitation, and power services stabilize or devolve into deeper administrative paralysis.

Gauteng Province, South Africa

The star marks Johannesburg and Pretoria in Gauteng, South Africa's economic center where the ANC was shut out of municipal majorities.

Map: OpenStreetMap contributors. Location: City of Johannesburg & City of Tshwane, Gauteng, South Africa.

Chronology of the 2026 South African local elections

Timeline of the election cycle and historic vote tabulations from the IEC:

  1. Millions of registered voters cast ballots across 23,000 voting stations in all 257 South African municipal councils.
  2. Early returns at the National Results Operations Centre in Pretoria indicate historic drops for the ANC in urban Gauteng and coastal KwaZulu-Natal.
  3. Democratic Alliance leads counts in Tshwane and Johannesburg; MK party establishes dominance across eThekwini.
  4. Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo certifies official audited figures: ANC 30.76%, DA 24.64%, MK 9.76%, EFF 6.22%.
  5. ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula acknowledges "catastrophic" defeat; parties begin mandatory 14-day coalition negotiations.

Sources and visual credits

Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) · BBC News · Al Jazeera · Daily Maverick · Electoral Commission of SA on X · ANC on X.

Hero and thumbnail: default In The News section card. Map data: OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.

Research note: Vote percentages (ANC 30.76%, DA 24.64%, MK 9.76%, EFF 6.22%, ActionSA 5.67%) and seat totals (3,246 ANC seats) verified against the official IEC audited national seat tally dashboard. Statements by Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula verified from press briefings in Pretoria.