Nine days before South Africans vote in the 4 November local government elections, the ANC does not come out on top in a single one of the six metros polled by eNCA and MarkData. Analyst Wayne Sussman called it unprecedented on BizNews this morning. For the ANC, that is the headline. The more useful story is what the same poll says about why.
What the numbers say
In Johannesburg, the DA polls 35.0% against the ANC’s 21.8%, with the MK Party on 12.5%, the EFF on 11.9% and ActionSA on 10.3%. In Tshwane, released on Sunday, the DA is on 33.9% and the ANC on 24.9%, followed by the EFF on 12.3%, ActionSA on 10.7% and the FF Plus on 7.9%.
According to eNCA’s analysis of the Tshwane and eThekwini results, MK polls 48% in eThekwini and has “an excellent shot” at an outright majority there, with the DA second on 25.2%. In Cape Town the DA is on 52.6%, per eNCA’s earlier Johannesburg and Cape Town analysis.
The poll modelled turnout at 48.8%, with a margin of error of about 3% per metro. Fieldwork for the Johannesburg and Cape Town numbers ran from 12 August to 10 September, so it predates the final stretch of the campaign.
Nationally, eNCA reported the DA on 28.4% and the ANC on 29.6%, a gap of 1.2 percentage points. DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis told supporters the party now leads in five of the major metros.
The blame question is the real finding
Party shares make headlines. The blame questions should worry the ANC more. In Johannesburg, 76.6% of respondents named the ANC as mainly to blame for the state of the city’s water, electricity, sewage and potholes. Only 8.0% blamed the DA. In Tshwane, 62.5% blamed the ANC and 15.0% the DA.
On water, 61.5% of Joburg respondents said the mayor and municipality were “hopeless” and that the city needs a different mayor and a different ruling majority. In Tshwane it was 62.6% on water, and 67.2% on whether service delivery has improved at all.
That last Tshwane number deserves attention. Tshwane is run by ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya, who is the most popular mayoral candidate in the poll at 25.9%, more than twice her party’s 10.7%. Yet two in three residents say the city has not turned around. Voters can rate a mayor and still be fed up with the city. That is a warning for whoever governs next, not only for whoever governed last.
Leading is not governing
No party is close to a majority in Johannesburg or Tshwane. eNCA’s own reading is that the DA will be the largest party in Tshwane “by a wide margin” but “almost certainly” short of a majority, and that Johannesburg is headed for “another five years of coalition government”.
So the real contest starts after the count. The question for each metro is who can build a coalition that survives a budget vote, a motion of no confidence and the next water outage. If the Joburg numbers hold, any stable majority will need some mix of the DA, ActionSA, MK and the EFF, parties with very different ideas about what the city is for. Coming first matters less than staying in office long enough to fix something.
What to watch before 4 November
Turnout is the swing factor. A modelled 48.8% means roughly half of registered voters are expected to stay home, and small changes in who turns up can move results by more than the 3% margin. The IEC has approved a record 2.65 million special votes, to be cast on 2 and 3 November, as Rand Desk reported.
The ANC’s failure to name mayoral candidates is also showing up in the data. eNCA notes it is handicapping the party’s candidates in both eThekwini and Tshwane, and in Johannesburg voters were offered a list of possible ANC names, with current mayor Dada Morero the strongest on 15%, far behind the DA’s Helen Zille on 30.6% and ActionSA’s Herman Mashaba on 23.4%. A party asking for five more years should at least tell voters who will run the city.
The accountability test
Polls are snapshots, not results. But this one gives every party something to answer for. The ANC has to explain why residents overwhelmingly blame it for broken services in cities such as Johannesburg, where it holds the mayor’s office today. The DA, ActionSA and the other parties leading the polls owe voters a coalition plan, not just a vote share. And voters, if these numbers mean anything, are saying the same thing in every metro: fix the water first, then ask for our trust.
Holleration will track the special votes on 2 and 3 November and the results from 4 November.