South Africans vote on Wednesday in a closely watched local government election, with parties battling for control of major cities in a contest expected to offer a measure of the national mood before the next national polls.
The vote comes as a weary electorate contends with infrastructure challenges, dry taps, and unemployment above 30 percent.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced polling stations will open at 7:00 am (0500 GMT) and close at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT).
The Presidency says President Cyril Ramaphosa and his deputy Paul Mashatile will join the over 29 million South Africans as they cast their votes.
Past voter apathy
More than 29 million voters are registered but the last municipal elections, in 2021, drew fewer than half of them to the polls, with turnout at 46 percent.
Of the 2.6 million people approved to cast special votes over two days, only 1.4 million did so, the electoral commission said on Tuesday.
The African National Congress (ANC), which led the country’s liberation struggle, remains projected to emerge as the largest party nationally, but polls point to a further erosion of its support.
Once the dominant force in South African politics, the party of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela fell below 50 percent of the vote for the first time in the 2021 municipal elections.
It suffered further losses at the 2024 national vote, securing just over 40 percent and forcing it to share power in a government of national unity with nine other parties.
Opposition strategy
The liberal Democratic Alliance (DA), the country’s second-largest party, has set its sights on Johannesburg, campaigning hard to capitalise on service delivery failures in the ANC bastion.
Meanwhile, the breakaway opposition uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, led by former president Jacob Zuma, is mounting a strong challenge for the east coast port city of Durban.
MK made a dramatic electoral breakthrough in 2024, drawing support away from the ANC to finish third nationally, with 14.5 percent of the vote.
“We are going to start by taking back our country here,” Zuma said on Sunday in Durban, a city at the centre of growing anti-migrant sentiment that has become a prominent theme of the election campaign.
South Africa’s election system
South Africans elect municipal councillors, who then choose mayors and form the administrations that will run their cities.
With outright majorities far from assured in several major cities, the vote could usher in another round of complex coalition negotiations, as parties bargain over the alliances needed to govern.
Coalition rule is already a feature of local government, with 74 of the country’s 257 municipalities governed by coalitions or minority administrations by February 2026, according to the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection.
The final results, expected on Sunday, will offer a clearer picture of the political landscape before the next general election in 2029.
They will also carry implications for the ANC’s own future, with the party due to elect a new leader at its December 2027 conference — a contest that will help determine who leads it into the next national race.
Meanwhile, the IEC Chairperson Mosotho Moepya and his team have vowed to deliver credible, free and fair elections and the results will be declared within seven days after the polls.
