For voters in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, the question of who will run their city after 4 November may not be answered on election night at all. Recent polling points to more hung councils and a continued reliance on multiparty coalitions across major municipalities. That means the people who live in these cities could face weeks of backroom negotiation before anyone takes office. For them, the stakes are practical: who fixes the water, who keeps the lights on, who answers for service failures.
The African National Congress heads into these local government elections battered and uncertain. Its support has fallen from 65% in the 2006 municipal elections to 40.2% in the 2024 national elections, and the 4 November vote will be a crucial test of whether the once-dominant liberation movement can arrest its decline. Projections suggest the party could lose at least six percentage points from that 40.2% national vote, falling into the mid-30s. The question hanging over the campaign is stark: can it regain lost ground before the 2029 national elections and remain a key player in coalition governments, or will it be relegated to the opposition benches and risk political obscurity?
The campaign itself has been turbulent. The party failed to field mayoral candidates in several municipalities. Tensions flared in the tripartite alliance. Concerns arose over Deputy President Paul Mashatile’s health, and secretary-general Fikile Mbalula collapsed after the Constitutional Court reinstated the 181 candidates the party had failed to register before the Electoral Commission’s deadline.
The numbers tell a story of fragmentation that residents feel directly, in the difficulty of holding any administration to account. The number of hung councils rose from 27 in the 2016 local elections to 70 in 2021. After the 2021 elections, the Democratic Alliance controlled 24 councils, the Inkatha Freedom Party governed 16, and other parties took control of several smaller municipalities. Ipsos projects that multiparty coalitions will be necessary to govern several municipal councils, making post-election negotiations unavoidable. Its polling puts the ANC at 31%, the DA at 25%, the MK Party at 14%, the Economic Freedom Fighters at 11%, ActionSA at 6%, the IFP at 3% and the Patriotic Alliance at 2%.
Other pollsters paint a similarly fragmented picture. Polling analysis reported by eNCA shows Markdata projecting the DA to lead in Johannesburg with 35% support, followed by the ANC at 22%. News24’s reporting on Sabi polling points to hung councils in key metros as well: in Tshwane, the DA is projected to secure 32% support, followed by the ANC at 24%, the EFF at 14% and ActionSA at 11%. Several key battlegrounds are expected to produce no outright winner, among them Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo City and eThekwini, adding to setbacks in Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay, where the ANC has already been relegated to the opposition benches.
Analysts argue the consequences for the party could be severe. Political analyst Wayne Sussman told the Mail and Guardian that the 2026 local elections would be the last under President Cyril Ramaphosa’s leadership of the party and would be critical as it prepared for 2029. “President Ramaphosa ran a very energetic campaign the past couple of days. It has been a difficult campaign. We have seen Gwede Mantashe fighting with the tripartite alliance and apologising for remarks, Paul Mashatile’s ill health and Fikile Mbalula’s collapsing at the Constitutional Court judgement,” he said. Sussman identified the three Gauteng metros, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane, as well as Nelson Mandela Bay, Mogale City and Emfuleni as key battlegrounds where coalition negotiations could determine who governs.
Sussman also pointed to the ANC’s failure to name mayoral candidates, something voters notice. “We started seeing a big focus on mayoral candidates in Cape Town from the early 2000s and then an uptick in 2016. Although voters don’t choose the mayor, the ANC missed an opportunity by not appointing mayoral candidates,” he said. Voters wanted to know who would lead their municipalities, and the ANC’s failure to name candidates, unlike other major parties, could weaken its appeal. Yet he noted the party retained substantial support in rural communities during the 2024 elections, and said that even though the ANC is very vulnerable, “they hold more cards in a coalition than parties like the DA and MK.” He highlighted the electoral ceiling faced by the DA and EFF, adding that the MK Party might slightly decline from its 2024 breakout performance.
Meanwhile, political strategist Jonathan Moakes expects a poor showing. “Up until the Constitutional Court ruling, Mangaung was in trouble because they were not putting candidates forward. They will now probably be able to cobble a coalition … It does not look particularly good for them,” he said. Moakes suggested factionalism and fears of defections, particularly to the MK Party, might have contributed to the reluctance to select mayoral candidates. The party has previously used such candidates to bolster its appeal: in 2016 it nominated Thoko Didiza as its Tshwane mayoral candidate, a decision that provoked resistance from party branches. In Johannesburg, it has considered national executive committee member Frank Chikane, current mayor Dada Morero and deputy mayor Loyiso Masuku, with uncertainty over its final strategy.
Moakes warned that losing Johannesburg would be devastating because of the city’s economic importance. “If they are shut out from Johannesburg … it will be devastating as they lose the economic hub. Especially if they are shut out for a long time, like the Western Cape, their internal structures collapse. Their one saving grace is coalition negotiations,” he said. He cautioned against assuming the MK Party would repeat its 2024 performance, citing an underwhelming local campaign, organisational weaknesses, limited funding, internal divisions and struggles to provide campaign posters for its candidates. Regionally, he expects the ANC could struggle in the eastern half of Mpumalanga, where substantial Zulu-speaking communities live, remain relatively strong in parts of the Eastern Cape, deliver some of its best results in Limpopo, and face a fragmented, unpredictable picture in the Northern Cape and North West.
For ordinary voters, the projections suggest coalition governments are becoming a defining feature of local politics rather than a temporary response to the ANC’s decline, with smaller parties further fragmenting the landscape. The ANC’s rural strongholds are also shrinking, particularly if its support in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Limpopo weakens. “Their campaign has certainly been the worst that I have ever seen. They typically start slowly and build momentum at the end,” Moakes said, adding that the ANC’s final Siyaqoba campaign rally on Sunday, 1 November, would be a test of its ability to mobilise supporters. A fuller account of the party’s predicament appears in the Mail and Guardian’s analysis at https://mg.co.za/politics/2026-10-29-anc-s-last-throw-of-the-dice/, which frames the vote as the movement’s last throw of the dice. For the communities waiting on those coalition talks, the outcome will shape daily life for years to come.