ANC faces crushing defeat in South African local elections with 80% of ballots counted | ANC (African National Congress)

The African National Congress is set to suffer a crushing defeat in South Africa’s local elections, with Nelson Mandela’s once-dominant party falling to less than a third of the vote nationally with more than 80% of ballots counted.

Wednesday’s fragmented vote marks another stage in the decline of the ANC, which has led national governments since the end of white minority apartheid rule in 1994. High unemployment, crime, corruption and poor local service delivery have all contributed to the party’s voter turnoff.

The former Liberation Movement is expected to lose its status as the largest party in the two most populous provinces, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, as the parties have begun coalition negotiations behind closed doors. The final results should be announced on Sunday.

The ANC received 31.8% of the vote nationally, almost 14 percentage points lower than its result in the 2021 local elections. The centre-right, white-led Democratic Alliance (DA) received 24.1% of the vote, while former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party received 9.3%.

Turnout also increased in Wednesday’s vote. The electoral commission estimated that 54.5% of registered voters cast ballots, up from 46% five years ago.

The final shape of coalitions in some of the country’s largest cities remains unclear as final votes are still being counted. Senior officials from the major parties have said they will talk with almost anyone, while keeping negotiating strategies secret.

In Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial capital and largest city, with 4.8 million people, voters faced regular water and power cuts, uncollected trash and potholes. The municipality, which has seen 10 mayoral changes in the past decade amid unstable coalitions, has admitted a R220bn (£9.9bn) backlog in infrastructure spending.

With just over half the votes counted in Johannesburg, the DA led with 40%, having run an energetic campaign under the leadership of Helen Zille, a 75-year-old former mayor of Cape Town. The ANC, which leads the current coalition, comes second with 17.5%. ActionSA, a right-wing party led by Herman Mashaba, was at 15.5%. Mashaba has pledged never to work with Zille, whom he calls “racist”, something she vehemently denies.

Many ANC strongholds have yet to release their full results. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a respected think tank, predicted that the DA would finish with 34%, the ANC 20% and ActionSA 16.8%.

Coalitions in Gauteng’s three municipalities are often negotiated together. The DA leads in all three areas.

The MK party, led by 84-year-old Zuma, who continues to deny and deny numerous allegations of corruption, is expected to supplant the ANC as the largest party in KwaZulu-Natal. Founded in 2023, it mixes socially conservative Zulu nationalism with promises of redistribution of land and wealth from white South Africans to black South Africans.

With half the votes counted in the eThekwini municipality, which includes Durban, MK held 41%, meaning other parties could form a coalition to keep it out of power. Meanwhile, the DA is expected to retain its majority in Cape Town, despite growing middle-class anger over rising housing costs.

Voters choose a local councilor and a party, with seats allocated by proportional representation. Councilors will then have two weeks to elect mayors and form municipal governments.