South Africa’s African National Congress led in early results from the November 4 municipal elections on Thursday, but with a sharply reduced share of the vote. With around 12 percent of votes counted in the early morning tally reported by Reuters, the ANC had about 32 percent of the vote nationally, narrowly ahead of the Democratic Alliance on about 30 percent, according to Electoral Commission figures. A later snapshot, at about 20 percent of voting districts reporting, put the ANC on 31.39 percent and the DA on 30.24 percent. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, in a projection based on 11.5 percent of voting districts declared, suggested the ANC would finish near 32 percent and the DA near 26 percent.
The sharpest movement was in Johannesburg, the country’s largest city and economic centre. On the partial count reported on Thursday morning, the DA held about 40.7 percent of the vote in the city with 9 percent of votes counted, against 17.10 percent for the ANC, with ActionSA on 15.41 percent, the Economic Freedom Fighters on 6.37 percent and the MK Party on 4.42 percent. In Gauteng province as a whole, an earlier snapshot had the DA leading on 39.3 percent, ahead of the ANC on 18.6 percent and ActionSA on 15.2 percent. Those city and provincial figures describe the earliest reporting districts and are not a final composition for any council.
The November 4 vote covered 10,526 seats across 257 municipalities, with 29.2 million voters registered. The ANC was widely expected to lose ground as voters punished it over crime, corruption scandals and failing basic services such as water and electricity. Major municipalities including Johannesburg are not expected to produce an outright winner, which means parties will have to negotiate coalition governments. On Reuters reporting, parties will have two weeks from the declaration of results, expected on Sunday, to form those governments.
This is a material update to yesterday’s voting day story, not a final result. The counts still to come from populous districts in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal can change both the national shares and the metro standings, and no council control should be treated as settled until the Electoral Commission declares the results. Status: reported, preliminary counts from the Electoral Commission as published on November 5.