By Thapelo Molefe
The ANC held a narrow lead over the DA in the 2026 local government elections on Thursday morning, as early results showed the governing party losing ground in major metros.
With about 20% of voting districts reporting, the ANC had secured 31.39% of the vote nationally, narrowly ahead of the DA on 30.24%, according to figures displayed at the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) Results Operations Centre.
The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party was third with 5.63%, while smaller parties, including the Patriotic Alliance (PA) and ActionSA, were making gains in several municipalities.
However, the results remained preliminary, with thousands of voting districts still to be counted, particularly in politically contested provinces such as Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The early figures pointed to another closely contested local government election, with several municipalities potentially facing coalition negotiations if no party secures an outright majority.
“One of the biggest trends we are seeing in Gauteng, particularly the City of Joburg, is just how badly the ANC is doing and how much the ANC is losing votes, particularly to parties like ActionSA, the DA and the SACP,” said political analyst Tara Roos.
Roos pointed to results from Soweto, where she said the ANC had suffered a significant decline in one of its traditional strongholds.
According to Roos, the party’s support at the Apostolic Faith Mission voting district in Dlamini, Soweto, had fallen from 37% to 18%.
She said the ANC was performing better in provinces such as North West and the Northern Cape but was struggling to maintain its dominance in metropolitan municipalities.
“When we look at Tshwane, when we look at Ekurhuleni, when we look at the City of Joburg, the ANC is not leading in any of them, and that is shocking,” Roos said.
In Gauteng, the DA was leading with 39.3% of the vote, followed by the ANC on 18.6% and ActionSA on 15.2%, according to an earlier snapshot of the provincial results.
READ: WATCH: Mashatile says prospect of coalitions can’t be ignored, but ANC is targeting Joburg majority
In Johannesburg, the DA had established a commanding early lead, securing 40.71% of the vote by 10am on Thursday, according to News24’s IEC-linked election dashboard.
With 9% of votes counted, the ANC was second on 17.10%, followed by ActionSA on 15.41%, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on 6.37% and the MK Party on 4.42%.
The DA’s vote share was 14.71 percentage points above the dashboard’s comparison baseline, while the ANC was 16.9 percentage points below it.
The early count nevertheless remained too limited to establish the final composition of the Johannesburg council.
In Tshwane, an earlier results snapshot showed ActionSA leading with approximately 28%, followed by the ANC on 27% and the DA on 21%.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the MK Party was leading with approximately 32.7%, followed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on 22.3% and the DA on 12.9%.
The ANC remained ahead in the Eastern Cape with approximately 48%, compared with the DA’s 20%.
In the Western Cape, the DA was leading with 56.51% after 32% of voting districts had been counted. The ANC was second on 11.67%, narrowly ahead of the PA on 10.79%.
READ: Joburg signed multibillion-rand salary deal just hours before local elections
The figures reflected different stages of counting and were expected to change as more voting districts reported.
Meanwhile, projections by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), developed in collaboration with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), suggested that the ANC could finish with approximately 32% of the aggregated national vote, compared with the DA’s projected 26%.
The CSIR uses historical voting patterns and statistical modelling to estimate election outcomes as voting districts are progressively declared.
The organisation has stressed that its projections are not official election results or opinion polls, but independent statistical estimates that are updated as more voting districts report.
Its early municipal projections also suggested a DA lead in Nelson Mandela Bay, where the party was forecast to secure 40.7%, compared with the ANC’s 29% and the EFF’s 5.4%.
In Mangaung, the model projected the ANC at 38.3%, followed by the DA on 31.1% and the EFF on 8.4%.
Political analyst Sophie Mokoena said the early results reflected growing dissatisfaction among voters, who were increasingly willing to support alternatives to parties that had failed to deliver on their promises.
“The story of this election is that South Africa is changing, and South Africans are beginning to send a message,” she said.
“If you don’t perform, if you don’t meet our expectations, if you don’t deliver on your promises to us, if you don’t take us seriously, if you don’t respect our votes, we will do what is right and look for alternatives.”
Mokoena said political parties needed to place citizens at the centre of governance, pointing to persistent water shortages, electricity problems and poor waste management in municipalities.
READ: The disruptors: Zille and Zuma shake up the battle for metros
She also warned that coalition negotiations could create further instability if parties prioritised political power over service delivery.
With several municipalities potentially facing hung councils, parties may have to negotiate coalition agreements to establish governing administrations.
Roos suggested that an arrangement similar to the national Government of National Unity, involving the ANC and DA, could emerge in some municipalities.
She said the two parties could prioritise stability while seeking to prevent the MK Party and EFF from entering governing coalitions.
However, Mokoena said the ANC would have to consider its existing partnerships and could not simply abandon coalition partners without renegotiating power-sharing arrangements.
INSIDE POLITICS
