South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) was leading in the early results of the municipal elections on Thursday, but with a sharply reduced share of the vote — around 32 percent against about 31 percent for the Democratic Alliance (DA) with roughly 12 percent of votes counted by 0424 GMT, according to results from the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) reported by Reuters.

Source: Reuters

This is the first count from the vote held on Wednesday, November 4 — the election Awaaz Punjab previewed as a national test for the ANC. The early tally is preliminary and could change significantly: only a small proportion of districts had reported from populous Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, home to some of the country's biggest cities, Reuters said.

Source: Reuters

A later tally carried by Daily Investor, using the Newsday Election Results Portal's live IEC data with 15 percent of voting districts declared, put the ANC on 32.45 percent and the DA on 30.34 percent nationally — the ANC down 13.14 percentage points compared with the 2021 municipal elections, and the DA up 8.68 points. The DA was leading in Gauteng and the Western Cape, while the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party was leading in KwaZulu-Natal, Daily Investor reported.

Source: Daily Investor (IEC data via Newsday portal)

The projection: a much smaller ANC, a much bigger DA

South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) projected, from 11.5 percent of voting districts declared, that the ANC would finish at about 32 percent of the final tally and the DA at 26 percent, the CSIR told the public broadcaster, according to Reuters. Daily Investor reported the CSIR's first national prediction in slightly more precise form — ANC 31.5 percent, DA 26 percent, MK Party 9 percent — with the Freedom Front Plus on track to be the fourth-largest party and support for the Economic Freedom Fighters down 5.45 points on 2021.

Before a single vote was counted, the November 4 municipal vote was already being read as a national test of how far the ANC has fallen. Read: South Africa Municipal Elections — the ANC Test

Why voters turned away

The November 4 vote was widely predicted to see the ANC lose ground nationally as voters punished it for high crime rates, corruption scandals and failing basic services such as water and electricity, Reuters reported. Daily Investor likewise attributed the fall largely to dissatisfaction with service-delivery failures. Political analyst Frans Cronje told Daily Investor the results are a clear signal of regime change in a country historically dominated by a single party, with coalition governments since 2024 breaking that hold at national and local level — though he said no single party has yet built enough trust to take total control.

Coalitions will decide the big cities

Major municipalities including Johannesburg are not expected to have any clear winner, meaning parties will have to negotiate coalition governments, Reuters said. They will have two weeks from the declaration of results — expected on Sunday — to do so. Analysts told Reuters the most stable option in cities such as Johannesburg would be for the ANC to partner with the DA, mirroring their arrangement in national government; but the two are ideologically opposed on key issues such as racial redress, and the ANC could instead team up with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters and former president Jacob Zuma's MK Party, cutting out the pro-business DA.

What happens next

Counting continues through the big provinces whose districts had barely reported in the early tally, and the final declaration is expected on Sunday. Beyond the town halls, Reuters noted, the outcome will shape the political landscape ahead of the 2029 national election and could influence the succession battle inside the ANC as President Cyril Ramaphosa nears the end of his term as party leader in 2027. For South Africa's large Indian-origin community — concentrated in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the two provinces slowest to report — the coalition arithmetic in Durban, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni will decide who runs water, power and policing in their neighbourhoods for the next five years.