South Africa Votes in Municipal Elections on November 4: Record 29.2 Million Registered as Ruling ANC Faces Test of Falling Below 40 Percent
JOHANNESBURG — South Africans voted on November 4 in municipal elections, with polling stations open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time. It is the country's first municipal election since 2021 and the first local election contested by former President Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, and it is widely seen as a test of support for the governing African National Congress (ANC).
The Electoral Commission of South Africa said a record 29.2 million people were registered to vote at 23,696 voting stations, and more than 1.4 million special votes had already been cast on Monday and Tuesday. Voters are choosing councils for eight metropolitan municipalities, 44 district councils and 205 local councils, and those councils will then elect mayors; each voter casts two ballots, one for a ward councillor and one for a party. Final results are expected on Sunday, November 8, and councils must then form and elect mayors within two weeks of the announcement.
The ANC has governed since the end of apartheid in 1994, but its support has declined steadily: it fell below 50 percent for the first time in the 2021 municipal elections and lost its parliamentary majority in the 2024 national election, forcing it into a government of national unity with the Democratic Alliance (DA) and other parties. Pre-election polls suggest ANC support could fall below 40 percent this time, with one Ipsos poll putting it at 30 percent. The campaign has been dominated by water outages, power cuts, crumbling infrastructure, unemployment, crime, corruption and a shortage of affordable housing; an auditor-general report awarded clean audits, the highest standard of financial management, to only 39 of South Africa's 257 municipalities for the 2024/25 financial year.
Johannesburg, the country's commercial centre, is the biggest prize. Run by a fragile ANC-led coalition, it has had five mayors in four years; the DA has nominated its 75-year-old former national leader Helen Zille, and a News24 poll put her support at 36 percent, which would leave her needing coalition partners even if she leads. In the eThekwini metro, which contains Durban, Zuma's MK party is polling above 40 percent, while the ANC is polling around 10 percent there, far below its 42 percent in 2021. The DA looks set to retain its majority in Cape Town, though probably with less than the 58 percent it won in 2021. President Cyril Ramaphosa was due to vote at Hyde Park High School in Johannesburg. All figures cited here are pre-election polls and electoral arrangements, not vote counts.
Source: Electoral Commission of South Africa
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片来源：南非选民在投票站排队（资料图），摄影 Leo za1，CC BY-SA 3.0（Wikimedia Commons）
