South Africans go to the polls on 4 November 2026 with the basics of daily life at the centre of the contest. Persistent water shortages, power outages, sewage spills and road decay dominate voter concerns. The municipalities responsible for fixing them are precisely the ones whose political control is most in doubt. With turnout falling, coalitions multiplying and no party on course for an outright majority in most metros, the vote could reshape who governs the services citizens depend on, and how stably they are governed.
The most immediate public-facing question is how many people will actually show up. Electoral Commission of South Africa data shows polling-day turnout has slid steadily from a high of 89.3% in 1999 to an all-time low of 58.6% in 2024. An eNCA and Mark Data poll published on 25 October predicts just 48.8% of registered voters will turn up this time. Ipsos polling found that 47% of respondents felt no political party represented their views, and 38% had no interest in politics or elections. That disengagement carries consequences for governance. Low turnout tends to correlate with declining ANC support, as disgruntled ANC voters are more likely to stay at home, which in turn shapes the coalitions that will run cities.
Fragmentation compounds the uncertainty. Polling from Ipsos, News24, the Social Research Foundation (SRF) and The Common Sense suggests ANC support will fall to between 22% and 32%, with no other party securing an outright majority nationally. Only the SRF poll predicts the DA overtaking the ANC, at 36%, up from 19.87% in the 2021 local elections. Other polls place both around 30%. Dr Harlan Cloete, a local governance and public leadership research fellow at the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State, says the system is becoming more fragmented, as breakaway parties like the MK party and the EFF, plus the SACP running independently for the first time, capture more of the ANC’s support base.
For residents of Gauteng’s metros, the stakes are concrete. The ANC lost outright majorities in the province’s metros in 2016 and declined further in 2021, securing only 33.6% in Johannesburg, 34.31% in Tshwane and 38.19% in Ekurhuleni. DA-led coalitions ruled the three metros after 2021 before being replaced by ANC-led ones. Johannesburg and Tshwane’s water crises have brought service delivery failures into sharp focus. October’s SRF poll put national ANC support at 32%, while eNCA-MarkData recorded 21.8% in Johannesburg against the DA’s 35%. The ANC’s prospects are further complicated by its decision to delay mayoral announcements until after the elections, and by a legal battle with the IEC in which a Constitutional Court ruling eventually restored 181 excluded candidates in six municipalities. With dissatisfaction high, the party will probably become increasingly reliant on coalitions to govern.
The DA, for its part, has campaigned for outright metro majorities and urged voters not to back smaller parties to avoid what it calls “coalitions of chaos”. The polling suggests otherwise. The SRF, News24 and eNCA all predict the DA may win Johannesburg with between 35% and 42%. Ipsos data predicts it may unseat the ANC in Buffalo City and Mangaung with 33% and 36% respectively, and eNCA predicts it may lead in Tshwane and Ekurhuleni with 33.9% and 31.2%. Its governing capacity will hinge on coalition partners, and it has declared it will not enter coalitions with the MK party or the EFF. That leaves ActionSA, with which it has previously clashed, the PA, another foe, and smaller parties like the FF Plus and IFP.
Smaller parties may hold the real leverage. In hung councils, the IFP, PA and FF Plus could provide the votes needed to elect a mayor or secure a governing majority, giving them influence over city government beyond their electoral support. By-elections show clear fragmentation: 120 of 435 wards flipped between 2022 and 2026, with the ANC losing 68 to the IFP, DA, PA, EFF and MK. ActionSA illustrates the kingmaker dynamic. Nasiphi Moya became Tshwane mayor in October 2024 through an ANC-EFF-PA arrangement, and the party also participates in ANC-led setups in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.
Meanwhile, coalition governance itself is becoming the norm, and its instability is a public concern. Local government coalitions rose rapidly from 27 in 2016 to 70 by 2021. Coalitions now govern 67% of Western Cape municipalities, three provinces (Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape) and the national government under the Government of National Unity. Ipsos predicts all metros except eThekwini will get coalition governments, though the SRF, eNCA and News24 predict eThekwini may too. The DA blames Johannesburg’s collapsed service delivery on its coalition. The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection’s 2026 Coalitions Barometer, published earlier in October, warned the country could face more complicated coalition arrangements after the elections. Dr Ongama Mtimka, acting director of the Raymond Mhlaba Centre for Governance and Leadership and a senior lecturer at Nelson Mandela University, told Daily Maverick that parties are likely to be more wary of potential partners and agreements to prevent instability. “If we look at processes that have been taking place to reform how coalitions work, as captured, for example, in the coalitions bill [Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill], we see that there is a growing intention among political stakeholders to try to minimise the erratic nature of changes once coalitions are formed,” he said.
In eThekwini, the MK party’s first local election could be a turning point. Polls indicate it could win between 33% and 55%, potentially an outright majority. Of four predicted scenarios, only two would allow opposition parties to form a coalition without MK, and if the Ipsos poll holds, it may become the only party to govern a metro without a coalition, though the DA will probably take a majority in Cape Town. The EFF, meanwhile, faces a test of whether it can rebuild after its vote share fell from 10.8% in 2019 to 9.52% in 2024, with recent polling mixed (8% in The Common Sense and SRF’s October poll, 11% in an earlier Ipsos survey). Competition from MK for disillusioned ANC voters in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, high-profile departures including Floyd Shivambu, Dali Mpofu and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, and its Pan-Africanist stance on immigration amid rising anti-immigration sentiment all weigh on its prospects.
The DA also faces slight pressure from the FF Plus and PA. eNCA-MarkData polled the FF Plus at 7.9% in Tshwane and the PA at 2.1%; in Johannesburg, the PA was at 3.7% and the FF Plus at 0.9%. Of 435 ward by-elections between February 2022 and June 2026, the PA won 23 wards (11 from the DA) and the FF Plus gained one from the DA. In the 2024 Western Cape election the DA won 55.58% against the PA’s 7.84% and the FF Plus’s 1.45%, but the PA captured a DA-held Stellenbosch ward in April 2026. Recent Cape Town polling puts the DA at 52.6%, the PA at 4.9% and the FF Plus at 1%, and the PA’s willingness to partner with the ANC adds leverage in tight municipalities.
Taken together, the results could redefine alliances across Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and eThekwini, where ANC-led pacts involving ActionSA, the EFF, PA and IFP currently hold sway. Polling shows tight races. The DA leads Johannesburg on 35% (ANC 21.8%, ActionSA 10.3%) and Tshwane on 33.9% (ANC 24.9%, ActionSA 10.7%), while Ipsos places MK at 55% in eThekwini, threatening the ANC-EFF-NFP governing coalition. Shifting vote tallies could break existing pacts and force entirely new coalition structures across all major metros, and with them, new arrangements for delivering the services residents rely on every day. Whether those arrangements hold together long enough to fix the taps, roads and grid is the question every voter watching the count will be asking.