The News
The African National Congress is on course to lose control of most of South Africa’s major cities in Wednesday’s local elections, according to polling data, potentially disrupting power dynamics in the national coalition government.
Several polls suggest the party’s remaining support is increasingly concentrated in smaller towns and rural provinces as opposition parties make deeper inroads in the biggest cities that drive Africa’s largest economy. The local government vote will decide who runs 250-plus municipalities responsible for basic service provision including water, sanitation, and refuse collection. It is the ANC’s first nationwide test since falling support forced it to share power in 2024 after losing its parliamentary majority — unprecedented in the democratic era.
The latest Ipsos poll, conducted between Sept. 12 and Oct. 13, put the ANC’s national support at an “all-time low” of 30%, reflecting just how far its backing in urban areas has fallen. Roughly 30% of respondents in Johannesburg, the nation’s commercial hub, and Tshwane, home of the capital Pretoria, said they would vote for the ANC. And that figure fell to just 10% in the port city of Durban, where the populist uMkhonto weSizwe Party (or MK), which is pressing for sweeping state control of the economy and built around former president Jacob Zuma, is comfortably ahead in polls.