South Africans are voting on Wednesday in local government elections that will choose councils for all 257 municipalities, the country’s sixth municipal poll since the end of apartheid. The Electoral Commission of South Africa, the IEC, says 29.2 million people are registered, voting stations numbering about 23,700 opened at 7am and close at 9pm, and roughly 188,500 electoral officials are deployed. A record field is contesting the poll: 546 political parties and 136,790 candidates, including 621 independents, for 10,526 council seats.
The main voting day follows the enforcement record covered in Tuesday’s edition. Special voting on Monday and Tuesday drew 1,425,942 voters from about 2.65 million approved applications, and those ballots remain sealed until the close of polls, when they are counted with election day ballots by voting district. The IEC used election day itself to clarify the campaigning rules: no political activity inside voting station boundaries, and meetings, marches and demonstrations are prohibited outside them as well, with violations carrying fines or up to five years in prison.
The government urged turnout and warned against fabricated results and manipulated videos aimed at discrediting the IEC, a caution the commission echoed about misleading election content on social media. Weather is the day’s operational risk, with heat in parts of the country and hail and thunderstorms forecast in others, and voters were advised to arrive early.
What is decided today is who runs the metros and municipalities that deliver water, power distribution, roads and refuse services, and where no party wins a majority, which coalitions form to do it. Counting begins after 9pm and the IEC publishes results progressively on its dashboard, with final results announced after counting and verification complete in the following days.
Status: voting is in progress, not a result. The figures to watch are turnout against the 2021 municipal poll, the ANC share in the eight metropolitan municipalities, and how many councils end without an outright majority.