More than 6,000 residents across Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay were asked how their municipalities are performing. The completed eNCA/MarkData metropolitan survey came back with a blunt answer. Criticism of municipal performance runs deep, with residents across several metros expressing dissatisfaction, particularly concerning essential services.
That dissatisfaction sits at the centre of what the research can and cannot tell the country. The survey covered six metropolitan municipalities, and while the combined responses form a substantial body of evidence about metropolitan political attitudes, they do not amount to a nationally representative assessment of voting intentions. The metros themselves are large operational units. They are home to substantial electorates, complex economies and important concentrations of political power, which makes their results worth careful attention. But the same survey cannot be stretched to speak for smaller cities, towns and rural municipalities, where delivery conditions and political competition are shaped by different circumstances.
The survey’s usefulness, then, lies in what it reveals about the places it did examine. In eThekwini, the MK Party measures 48% support, compared with 14.5% for the ANC. In Tshwane, the DA measures 33.9%, followed by the ANC at 24.9%, while the EFF and ActionSA also attract double-digit support. Cape Town’s survey puts the DA above 50%. Johannesburg’s results, meanwhile, point to support being distributed across several substantial parties.
Those figures describe different operating environments rather than variations of one national contest. Even where parties compete under the same national banners, their local organisation, governing histories and relationships with communities can differ considerably. It would be misleading to assume that the dynamics measured in eThekwini apply equally to smaller KwaZulu-Natal municipalities, or that Tshwane’s party preferences describe Gauteng as a whole. The political meaning of a number depends partly on where it comes from.
The harder question is what dissatisfaction with services actually produces at the ballot box. It is tempting to treat criticism of municipal performance as proof that respondents will abandon an incumbent party. But voting choices are influenced by more than service-delivery assessments. Political identity, local leadership, party organisation, community concerns and perceptions of available alternatives may all matter. Crucially, comparing separate aggregate poll figures cannot establish what individual voters are thinking. To determine whether the same respondents who criticise municipal services intend to change their votes, researchers would need to examine the relevant individual-level data. Without that evidence, political punishment remains a hypothesis rather than a demonstrated relationship.
There is also a structural limit on how the six results can be combined. They cannot simply be averaged to produce a national party-support figure. A meaningful combined estimate would require appropriate weighting and a clearly defined population. Even a properly weighted six-metro aggregate would still describe those surveyed metropolitan electorates, not the entire country.
What the research does enable, according to the discussion around it, is a better set of questions. Where is party competition becoming more fragmented? How do perceptions of municipal performance differ from city to city? Where do preferred political leaders and party choices diverge? And which patterns persist when researchers examine age groups, geography and turnout? Those questions move the discussion beyond the search for a single political headline.
That framing matters for anyone trying to judge whether local government is working. A national election result is built from millions of individual choices made in particular places, and each of those places carries its own record of service delivery, its own political history and its own set of local challenges. The seduction of a single big number, one figure that promises to say which party is gaining support and where the country is heading, is precisely what the six-metro design resists. Voters are electing councils responsible for very different communities, and the evidence gathered across the six metros shows how differently those council contests are shaping up.
The value of these surveys lies in helping the public understand some of those places more clearly, while reminding everyone how much of South Africa still sits beyond the frame.
The survey results were published by eNCA and MarkData, with eThekwini and Tshwane results released on 25 October 2026, and were discussed on SA Explained on 27 October 2026, where Naledi Moleo spoke with Wayne Sussman.