South Africa’s unity government is being tested – the toppling of a mayor in a key city exposes faultlines

By Susan Booysen

South Africa’s long-governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), performed disastrously in the country’s May 2024 elections. Its electoral fortunes are now tied to regaining support in Gauteng, the most populous and economically important province, which it had governed with outright majorities since 1994. In 2024 the ANC’s Gauteng result of 34.8%, along with its 17% in KwaZulu-Natal, sealed the party’s loss of its national outright majority.

We asked political scientist Susan Booysen for her perspective on the ANC’s battle for Tshwane, a metropolitan municipality in Gauteng. It’s also the administrative seat of the national government, where the party used a newly constituted coalition to topple the Democratic Alliance mayor, Cilliers Brink.

What lies behind the Gauteng ANC’s toppling of the DA mayor of Tshwane?

For the ANC (African National Congress) to regain majority electoral support, much will depend on the Gauteng province’s populous base. The three Gauteng metropolitan municipalities of Tshwane, Johannesburg, and Ekurhuleni are key in this