ANC under pressure to reverse South Africa decline

ANC under pressure to reverse South Africa decline

More than 500 parties are contesting the elections

South Africans are casting ballots in fiercely fought local elections that are expected to bring a sharp drop in support for the country’s former governing party, the African National Congress (ANC).

This year’s campaign period has featured energetic stunts, including politicians spinning cars, watching grannies knit and even splashing through enormous potholes.

Party leaders are competing to run South Africa’s almost 300 municipalities, which handle essential services such as water, electricity and refuse collection.

For the ANC, the vote is an opportunity to show it still has the ability to govern. The party suffered a disastrous result in the last national election, when it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994, the year apartheid ended.

Backing for the ANC has fallen sharply over the years amid anger over corruption, unemployment and crime.

At its height in 2004, the party won 70% of the vote in the general election. Twenty years later, that figure had fallen to 40%.

Polls and commentators have forecast another setback in these elections, but President Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected claims that the party is in decline.

"What I'm seeing here is that the ANC is going higher and higher and on the 4th [of November] we will show those naysayers," he told supporters at the party’s final rally on Sunday.

In townships such as Alexandra, north-east of Johannesburg, the ANC has long enjoyed strong support, but poor governance and voter apathy are eroding that base.

Among them was Sanele Ntombela, a first-time voter eager to have his say.

We found the 18-year-old spending time with friends on a street corner. Most of them said they had no plans to vote and had not registered.

They pointed to a lack of change and worsening basic services.

Ntombela, however, was excited to vote for the first time and believed it could bring change.

"We face many challenges in Alexandra. There's rubbish everywhere and we struggle with electricity and water and many other issues," he said.

Just a few metres away, piles of rubbish sat beneath a streetlight pole plastered with election posters from different political parties.

Across the road, drain water seeped through the many potholes that had torn up that section of the street.

The ANC faces immense pressure to reverse years of decline

The BBC also spoke to Zandile Mncube, who said she would not vote, despite being registered.

The 33-year-old also blamed poor service delivery and the performance of local leaders for her decision.

"It makes no difference [whether I vote or not]. Things have gotten worse over the years," she said.

Alex, as the township is known, is only a stone’s throw from Sandton, Africa’s richest square mile, yet the contrast could hardly be greater.

Sandton is famous for its skyscrapers, luxury shops and well-kept roads, while in Alex homes are packed tightly together and rubbish, either heaped up or scattered across pavements, is everywhere. The smell of raw sewage and uncollected waste hangs in the air, though residents seem accustomed to it.

The problems affecting Alexandra are not unusual. A drive through Gauteng province shows similar signs of neglect and decay, especially in the townships.

South of Johannesburg, Soweto appears slightly cleaner than Alexandra, but residents there also complain about service delivery.

Mduduzi Makhubo, 45, has lived in Soweto all his life and told the BBC about the community’s daily struggles to get water and electricity.

"Every Monday we know we won't have water after 2pm," he said.

Makhubo is registered to vote and plans to use his ballot to address the "arrogance" he says local leaders show residents and to "change the status quo".

These areas provide a small but important snapshot of the state of South Africa’s local government.

Years of auditor-general reports have exposed the dire condition of most of South Africa’s 257 municipalities.

A recent report awarded only 39 clean audits - the highest rating a public body can receive - between 2024 and 2025. None of Gauteng’s three metro cities, Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, appeared on the list.

Earlier this year, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke said Johannesburg "needs ongoing attention".

"If we don't that, we are going to continue on this slide where financial health deteriorates [and] where service delivery continues to be compromised, which is what we are living," she told lawmakers.

The city has been described as "effectively bankrupt" because of its dire finances. Dirty streets, unreliable electricity and ongoing water problems have been a feature for years.

Experts the BBC spoke to agreed that attention will be focused on Africa’s wealthiest city and the country’s seven other largest municipalities, or metros, especially those in Gauteng, when the results are announced.

Of South Africa’s eight metros, only three are run by a single party. In Gauteng, all three metros are governed by coalition administrations, with the ANC as the largest party.

But that could change.

Political analyst Melanie Verwoerd said the elections would be a "verdict ... and judgment" on the ANC.

"And the expectation is that the ANC generally in the country is going to [perform] the worst it's ever done," she said.

Several polls suggest the party’s support will keep falling in Wednesday’s election, which is being contested by more than 500 political parties.

One Ipsos poll put ANC support at 30%, down from 46% in the last local elections in 2021.

That same poll, along with others, indicates a modest rise in support for the Democratic Alliance (DA), particularly in Johannesburg. Ipsos forecasts the DA will win 25% in this election, up from 22% last time.

DA leader Helen Zille has been competing for the mayoral chain in the city, and her unusual campaign has drawn considerable attention.

The former Cape Town mayor has been filmed swimming in crater-like potholes, ziplining over sinkholes and arriving at her final city rally in a classic BMW 325i, known locally as a "Gusheshe".

She says the DA is the country’s best option for government, telling local radio station 702 last week that "towns and cities that work best are under DA governance".

Verwoerd, a former ANC MP and South Africa’s ambassador to Ireland, said coalitions would likely remain the norm across Gauteng.

Such arrangements have often been seen as unstable and chaotic at local level, and frequent leadership changes, usually caused by parties falling out, have hurt service delivery in many municipalities.

In her view, the most stable coalitions would be those that mirror what the ANC and DA have done nationally, where the historic rivals have agreed to share power.

Speaking about Cape Town, she said it was unlikely the DA would lose control of the municipality. The coastal city is widely regarded as the country’s best-performing metro and has been run by the DA since the late 2000s, when it ousted the ANC.

Ethekwini, which includes the port city of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, would be a "different story", Verwoerd said.

The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has been expected to do well there, but it is unclear whether it will win the outright majority needed to govern the metro. Polls suggest it will not and will need partners to form a government.

The party was founded by former South African President Jacob Zuma and was the largest party in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal in the 2024 provincial election.

Verwoerd said that while several options were possible for the party, forming a government would be "very messy" because it refuses to work with either the ANC or the DA.

A confident Zuma, speaking to supporters on Sunday, promised to take control of several municipalities after the elections.

Another political analyst, Dr Levy Ndou, agreed with Verwoerd, saying a coalition between the DA and ANC appeared unavoidable in most metros.

"We're not sure whether the arrangement of the government of national unity could have the potential to influence how the metros are going to be run," he said.

Both experts also discussed South Africa’s falling voter turnout. More than 29 million people are registered to vote, but participation, especially among young people, has steadily declined.

Ndou said this was due to the "calibre" of the candidates campaigning and the limited visibility of local councillors, who are often the people elected to lead neighbourhoods, during election campaigns.

South Africa’s electoral commission has seven days to declare the results, but parties have 14 days to establish a governing structure.