The clock that matters now has a date on it. The IEC's results went into the Government Gazette on Wednesday, and that starts a 14-day window. Every metro and local council in the country must sit for the first time and elect its office-bearers by 26 November. Cogta Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa has said plainly that coalition talks do not suspend or extend that requirement.
(A correction to our own earlier explainer: we had 22 November as the deadline. The 14-day period runs from 12 to 26 November, counted from the Gazette notice.)
About 138 councils, roughly 65% of the total, have no outright majority. So the question for residents in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini and Nelson Mandela Bay is simple: who will be running your city on 27 November, and on what written terms?
The ANC kept its leader and dropped its formula
The ANC's national executive committee met in Boksburg on Thursday. According to Business Day, four sources in the room said that by 5pm nobody had stood up to call for President Cyril Ramaphosa to resign or for the NEC to be dissolved. This was after the party's national share fell from 45.59% in 2021 to 30.76%.
Instead of a national formula, the ANC is moving to deals made municipality by municipality. Speaking at a doorstep briefing, the ANC's Bhengu said a package for eThekwini would look very different from one for Buffalo City. Business Day's sources described three options on the table: repeat the grand coalition with the DA, which met stiff resistance; build arrangements with ActionSA, the EFF, MK and the PA, which others dismissed as "transactional politics"; or go into opposition in some places.
Read that list again. A party that governs nationally with the DA is openly debating whether to sit on the opposition benches in the metros. That is not strategy. It is a party that has not decided what it wants, with two weeks left on the clock.
The one thing the ANC has decided is who does the talking. Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula's letter of 8 November, reported by News24, centralised all coalition talks under his negotiating team and told provinces and regions to work through his office. That matters, because Gauteng ANC leaders favour an arrangement with ActionSA in all three metros, and that call now sits with Luthuli House.
The DA and ActionSA are finally in the same room
On the other side, ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba said on X on Thursday that he had a "frank and productive meeting" with DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis, IOL reports. This is the same Mashaba who said on results night that he could not support the DA "in its current form".
His 7 November letter set out a trade. He and Helen Zille both step back from the Johannesburg mayoral race, the DA nominates someone ActionSA can back, and ActionSA takes deputy mayor. In Tshwane, Cilliers Brink gives up his council seat and the DA backs ActionSA's Nasiphi Moya. Ekurhuleni stays open. Neither party has said whether Thursday produced an agreement, and the DA says it will not negotiate through the media.
What the guidelines can and can't do
Hlabisa's Guidelines for Stable Coalitions in Local Government are the most useful document published this week, and also the weakest. They urge written coalition agreements with shared priorities, dispute resolution and standards of conduct. They say appointments, procurement and tenders stay with lawful decision-makers, not party bosses. They come with a template agreement.
But they are interim and non-binding, because the Municipal Coalitions Bill is still in Parliament. Nothing forces a party to sign one of these agreements, publish it, or stick to it.
The accountability test
Here is the standard residents should hold every party to by 26 November:
- Publish the agreement. If a coalition elects a mayor, the written deal behind it should be public the same week. The template exists; there is no excuse.
- Name the priorities. Water, electricity and refuse, with targets, not just who gets which committee.
- Keep hands off tenders. The guidelines say it. Parties should commit to it in writing.
The ANC has given itself flexibility. The DA and ActionSA have given themselves a meeting. What none of them has given voters yet is a signed, public deal. Thirteen days.