The ANC, the party that liberated South Africa from apartheid over thirty years ago, was heavily punished in local elections. Especially city dwellers are fed up with the poor governance and corruption of the ANC at every level.
For a long time, the party of the late President Nelson Mandela was the obvious choice for most South Africans. But according to the official results of the local elections, announced on Sunday early evening, the ANC received about 30.8 percent of the votes.
That is still a considerable number, and the ANC remains the largest party nationally, but it is 15 percentage points less than in 2021.
Six metropolises
The party took hits especially in the cities. In six of the main metropolises, another party became the largest. In most cases, that is the liberal Democratic Alliance (DA).
The focus was especially on Johannesburg, the economic heart of South Africa. There too, most votes went to the DA.
The million-plus city has become the symbol of the ANC's failure. Because the engine of the South African economy is poorly maintained. Johannesburg faces power outages, garbage in the streets, neglected buildings, water shortages, and high crime.
In contrast, Cape Town is often mentioned, the tourist city by the sea with Table Mountain, which has been governed by the DA for twenty years. There, at least in the better neighborhoods, everything seems to function better. That city remains in the hands of the DA.
Helen Zille
In Johannesburg and a number of other cities, they now seem to hope to get some of the better governance of Cape Town. A former DA mayor of Cape Town is therefore the mayoral candidate for that party in Johannesburg.
The 75-year-old politician Helen Zille ran a striking campaign with the message that she will solve Johannesburg's problems quickly. For example, during her campaign she snorkeled in a flooded pothole and rowed a boat through a flooded street in the township Soweto. Images of these stunts went viral.
It is not yet certain whether she will become mayor. Although the party became the largest in Johannesburg, it did not get enough votes to take control directly and therefore must form a coalition.
White party
It is still remarkable that the DA became the largest in Johannesburg, because it is a city where mainly poorer black South Africans live who traditionally mostly vote for the ANC. The DA is still seen by many as a white party that mainly looks after the middle class and the wealthy.
But many South Africans primarily want better governance. Especially in their own neighborhoods and cities, they see that the ANC does not do enough. They complain about cronyism in job distribution, corruption, and councilors who simply perform their work poorly.
According to research, only 39 of the 257 municipalities in South Africa have clean accounts. Notably, many of those municipalities are in the Western Cape province, where many municipalities are governed by the DA.
Also other parties
Not only the DA grew, but also other parties. For example, in Durban many people voted for MK, the party with which former president Jacob Zuma split from the ANC in 2023.
Also in the 2024 national elections, a shift was already visible. That year, the ANC lost the majority for the first time since the country became democratic and now governs in a unity government including the DA. And now cooperation with other parties is also necessary at the urban level.
Political analysts think the ANC realizes it must be more accountable for its policies and that it understands it must actually deliver results.
Already before the weekend, ANC chairman Fikile Mbalula called that a lesson for his party. President Cyril Ramaphosa said this evening that having a choice is healthy for a democracy. He called for good cooperation between the parties, in the interest of the voters.