The opposition Democratic Alliance was challenging the African National Congress in both municipalities.
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At the time of going to press and vote-counting underway, the chances of ANC holding onto Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub, and the capital Pretoria were under vast threat.
South Africa’s economy has also been one of the main issues for voters, with growth expected to be zero this year, and unemployment standing at 27%.
Political analysts blamed a cloud of scandals dogging South African President Jacob Zuma for his party’s historically poor showing in Wednesday’s local elections. It has been pushing hard to win supporters in other regions.
The Democratic Alliance’s support base in past elections has been mostly mixed and white South Africans, so its success in places like Port Elizabeth suggest the party is gaining support among black South Africans who have traditionally supported the ANC.
The DA had 472,136 of the votes while the African National Congress had 41.91 percent with 454,980 votes.
Final results are expected on Saturday.
An ANC party vehicle appeals for votes as locals are seen outside a voting station during the Local Government elections in Diepsloot township, north of Johannesburg, South Africa.
“In the case of Tshwane and Johannesburg the ANC will be the biggest party – but very significantly, it will fall below 50 percent, so we are looking at a major setback”, he said.
While they may end up in tricky coalitions, they have an opportunity that could change the nation’s political landscape.
While it still has an overall lead nationally, it trails the Democratic Alliance in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and is struggling in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
During campaigning, the ANC spent much time and money reminding voters of its liberation legacy and of the DA’s white roots, even comparing the party to the former apartheid regime.
By Friday afternoon, in Pretoria, DA was leading with 46,52 percent, ANC at 40,1 percent while EFF had 9,29 percent of the votes.
“I’m quite glad to announce the fact that, here in the city of Tshwane, by all of our current projections, certainly we will be the largest party”, Maimane said, although the two parties were by that point neck and neck there, at just over 42 percent each, with 82 percent of the votes counted.
The DA had 69 percent of the vote in Cape Town against the ANC’s 22 percent, with 77 percent of the votes in.
Sheila Meintjes, a political science professor at Johannesburg’s University of Witwatersrand, told Anadolu Agency that the ANC had lost about 7 percent of its support.
“While the middle classes are upset about government incompetence and corruption, the working classes are economically frustrated by the lack of jobs – good paying or not”, said Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, DaMina Advisors chief Africa frontier markets analyst and global managing director.
“We’ve lost Nelson Mandela Bay, we’ve conceded that we’ve lost it, and we are going to do an introspective look at ourselves. we are a party that is not going away”, he said.
Besides Mandela, who grew up in the nearby village of Qunu, the Port Elizabeth area was home to anti-apartheid luminaries such as former President Thabo Mbeki and his father Govan, and Steve Biko, the Black Consciousness leader killed in police custody in 1977.
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The election also represents a political renaissance for the DA, which a year ago elected its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, as part of its efforts to shake off its image as a party that mainly serves white interests.
