For residents of Johannesburg who have grown used to taps that run dry and street lights that stay dark, Wednesday’s local elections offered a chance to speak. What they said was unmistakable.
South Africa’s African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela that led the country out of apartheid more than three decades ago, has recorded its worst-ever result in a local vote. Its own Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula called the outcome “catastrophic.”
The anger behind that word is not abstract. Voters went to the polls to choose the councillors who run the country’s eight biggest cities as well as its 44 district and 205 local municipalities, the very layer of government responsible for the basics of daily life. Analysts say the ANC was harshly rebuked over problems with those basics: irregular water, electricity outages, dilapidated roads, broken street lights and uncollected refuse. Ralph Mathekga, a South African author and political commentator, told Al Jazeera the vote sent a “strong message” that “the collapse of service delivery and the ensuing corruption has reached a point where it cannot be tolerated.”
The numbers tell the story of a party losing its grip on the loyalty of ordinary South Africans. The ANC won 31 percent of the vote, a sharp drop from the 46 percent it took in the 2021 local elections and less than half the 66 percent it commanded two decades ago in 2006. Its main rival, the Democratic Alliance, came close behind on about 25 percent. The DA, which has long sought to shed its historical reputation as a “white party,” a label it rejects, said that based on its modelling it had won the votes of more than one million Black South Africans for the first time.
For the first time, the ANC lost its place as the largest party in Johannesburg, the economic hub, in the capital Pretoria, and in the large Ekurhuleni municipality east of Johannesburg. The DA retained control of Cape Town, the country’s second-biggest city. The slide follows a seismic national shift: in 2024 the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, ending 30 years of dominance and forcing a coalition national government.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who also leads the ANC, felt the rebuke personally. Sipho Seepe, a South African political analyst and columnist, said the vote was a personal censure of a leader who had presented himself as politically savvy and business-oriented but has continually been accused of underperforming. “He has been a total disaster, and the people this time have made it very clear,” Seepe told Al Jazeera. “People have been giving it [the ANC] a chance, and [now] they’re saying no more.” Ramaphosa was also implicated in a corruption scandal known as “Farmgate,” after burglars broke into his luxury private ranch in 2020 and stole $580,000 hidden inside furniture. He was accused of covering up the theft and keeping efforts to trace the burglars private to avoid an investigation into where the money had come from.
Ramaphosa himself urged humility, saying political parties should approach upcoming coalition negotiations with the understanding that “our people’s interest must not be drowned by the quest of political parties or representatives to settle political scores or petty squabbles.”
Because no party won more than 50 percent in many cities, the ANC and the DA must now either team up or negotiate with smaller parties to form municipal governments. Parties have 14 days to strike deals before city councils are formed. An ANC-DA partnership would mirror the arrangement in national government for the past two years, though the two remain ideologically opposed on key issues such as how to address the deep economic and social inequalities left by apartheid. The DA, for its part, signalled caution, saying in a statement it would open coalition talks with “political parties that share a commitment to clean and accountable government, rooting out corruption, service delivery for all, the rule of law, and non-racialism.” Ramaphosa is expected to step aside as party leader ahead of the 2027 ANC leadership contest and the country’s next general election in 2029.
For communities across the country, the deeper meaning of the vote may lie in what it says about power itself. Analysts say the result confirms South Africa is transitioning away from one-party dominance towards a more competitive and fragmented multiparty system. “From now on, we can accept coalitions to be the new normal,” Seepe said, arguing that while instability may follow, it could pressure parties to prioritise performance once in office. “The ANC government has been stable, but it has been failing the people,” he said, noting that responsiveness to the electorate’s needs is now seen as more urgent than political continuity. Mathekga, author of The ANC’s Last Decade, said voters have made clear they “do not want concentration of power in one party,” describing the shift as a “necessary evolution of South African politics” that may last “until political parties demonstrate that they can be trusted with power to constitute government on their own.”
Sandile Mnguni, a lecturer in political science and international relations at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, agreed that the country appeared ready to trade some stability for greater accountability. The decline in support, he said, “should serve as a clear warning that the party can no longer rely on its historical political dominance or liberation credentials to retain the confidence of voters,” and if the underlying grievances of the electorate remain unaddressed, the party could face even greater electoral challenges. He acknowledged the risks of political stalemating, unstable alliances and disagreements that delay important municipal decisions, but added: “I view the broader transition as an opportunity for South Africa’s democratic development, provided that political parties demonstrate political maturity and place governance above narrow partisan interests.”
Further context on the results and their implications can be found at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/9/what-catastrophic-south-africa-local-election-results-mean-for-anc, which examines what the “catastrophic” outcome means for the ANC and the country it has governed since 1994, when it won 63 percent of the vote under Mandela’s leadership before he was inaugurated as the first Black president of South Africa.