South Africa’s Municipal Elections Test ANC’s Declining Dominance

JOHANNESBURG — South Africans began voting Wednesday in local elections that serve as a critical gauge of the African National Congress, the party that led the country out of white minority rule but has seen its support steadily decline over the past decade.

The elections will determine leadership for South Africa’s eight major metropolitan municipalities, as well as 44 district councils and 205 local councils.

Johannesburg, the country’s largest city and economic hub, stands as a central battleground. Often described as Africa’s richest city, its ongoing struggles with water, electricity, and other public services have underscored widespread frustration with local government failures.

Johannesburg has had five mayors in four years since the last local elections. It is currently governed by a fragile ANC-led coalition but is a prime target for the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s second-largest party.

The DA has nominated its former national leader, 75-year-old Helen Zille, for mayor.

Zille has undertaken a series of publicity stunts meant to highlight the failures of the ANC and other parties in running Johannesburg, including snorkeling in a water-filled trench in the middle of a road and rowing an inflatable boat through a pond created by a water leak elsewhere in the city of around 5 million people.

Voters do not directly elect mayors but choose council members who then select mayors. Small parties often play kingmaker roles in local government coalitions.

In the 2021 local elections, the ANC won less than 50% of the vote for the first time since the apartheid system of white minority rule ended in 1994.

The ANC subsequently lost its 30-year parliamentary majority in the 2024 national elections—a seismic shift for Africa’s largest economy—and entered into a national coalition with the DA and other parties, though ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa was reelected president of South Africa.

While the parties are partners in a national unity government, they remain fierce rivals in the local elections. Zille’s quest to become mayor of Johannesburg will test whether the DA can gain ground beyond its traditional support base in Cape Town, the country’s second-largest city.

These elections will also be the first local vote contested by the MK Party, led by former South African President Jacob Zuma. Zuma resigned as president over corruption allegations in 2018 and was expelled from the ANC in 2024 after starting his new party.

The MK Party made a surprisingly strong debut in the 2024 national elections to become the third-largest party in Parliament and retains strong support in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal in the east.

Inadequate public services—especially failed water supplies—are a key election issue across the country. Other concerns include South Africa’s high rates of crime and unemployment, alongside a national reckoning over immigration.

Groups protesting illegal immigration have drawn support and attention across the country of 62 million people in recent months and have criticized Ramaphosa and his government. Some parties have made opposition to undocumented migration a central part of their local election campaigns.

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