While the odds are stacked against the ANC in making an impact in the Johannesburg and Cape Town metros, a post-election ANC-DA coalition could be in the offing, experts say.
As the two leading members of the government of national unity prepare to face off in the local government polls, independent election analyst Michael Atkins said the significance of the polls would lie in parties’ conduct during coalition negotiations.
“We need to build a culture of respect across divides, where the needs of voters are prioritised over short-term interests,” he said.
Atkins said public opinion polls showed the ANC dropping below 30% in Johannesburg. “A key implication would be the possibility of an overhang, where the ANC retains more wards than the total PR (pro-portional representation) seat allocation. This gap could be as high as five seats, meaning the ANC without PR councillors,” he added.
Despite a decline in DA support in Cape Town, its provincial results in 2019 and 2024 were better than at national level, pointing to the party’s core local support remaining intact. Predicting the likelihood of a hung council in Johannesburg, Professor Sethulego Matebesi of the University of the Free State and head of the department of sociology, quoted the MarkData poll, which placed the DA at 35% and the ANC at 21.8%.
“Polls like this, struggle to model who will vote in low-turnout local elections. While the DA will do well in Johannesburg, it will keep its mayoralty of Cape Town. But an outright majority is uncertain in Cape Town. “Political parties, like the Patriotic Alliance, will garner significant electoral support — something that will decrease the DA’s support. For this reason, a high turnout matters more than any campaign issue,” he said.
“We have noted how black voters have openly associated themselves with parties like the Freedom Front Plus. It will be interesting to see what impact this shift will have on the outcome of the elections.”
With DA Johannesburg mayoral candidate Helen Zille having ruled out a possibility of an EFF and uMkhonto weSizwe Party coalition, the ANC was set to be a perfect partner. “The DA is polled at about 35% and ActionSA 10%, even together falling short of a majority … Rough poll shares are not seats. Combinations with enough weight to govern are the DA plus the ANC or the DA with several smaller parties. The first is more stable but politically costly for both. The second depends on repairing the Zille-Mashaba relationship. A broad ANC-led alliance of MK, EFF and ActionSA is arithmetically possible, but would be hard to hold together,” Matebesi said.
High crime levels on the Cape Flats and in townships have put the DA on the back foot, with the debate often driven by the party’s mooted plan to spend millions on building a 9km concrete barrier along the N2 high-way between Baden-Powell Road and Bhunga Avenue.
Matebesi said: “Firstly, 45.3% of the people in Cape Town blame the national government for gangsterism, against 25.3%, limiting the damage to the DA. Secondly, whether the wall is ‘racially divisive’, is a value judgement. Public opinion appears to split, depending on where people live …The DA has been accused of prioritising affluent suburbs, while its supporters say black residents get better services where it governs.”
Opposed to the erection of the Cape Town wall as a means to fight crime, Dr Oscar van Heerden, a research associate and senior research fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for African Diplomacy and Leadership, said: “It is a dangerous precedent, creating prison-like territories in and around the city, least curbing crime.
“Helen Zille and the people of Johannesburg seem to have forgotten the little fact that the DA after 2016, ran a number of metros and yet could not turn those cities around.
“Regarding spending more money on services in affluent suburbs, compared to poor black townships … the DA has been exposed for inadvertently maintaining the apartheid spatial morphology, having done very little to ensure integration in housing and socio-economically.”
Announcing the DA key priorities for the financially-ailing Johannesburg, Zille has listed the fixing of finances, putting honest and capable people in charge; declaring war on corruption, making the municipality work for residents and restoring law and order.
The ANC has pledged to turn around municipal service delivery, with key targets and first 100 days’ plan being to invest at least 8% of municipal asset values into maintenance and renewal, having 50% or more municipalities achieve clean or unqualified audits. It also pledged to redouble efforts to fight crime.