It relinquished an outright majority in the capital, Pretoria, the industrial hub Ekurhuleni and the southern city of Port Elizabeth, final results for these areas showed.
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Encompassing Port Elizabeth and the surrounding rural area, the area was a hotbed of anti-apartheid activism which won the name in 2001.
The DA, which took 46.5% compared to the ANC’s 41% in Nelson Mandela Bay, says it is in talks with other parties to form a coalition in the municipality on South Africa’s southern coast.
The political shift in this municipal election could have major ramifications for the 2019 presidential vote – and the DA is already beginning to look ahead. The DA also maintained control of Cape Town, which it has held since 2006.
The ANC has said “we will reflect and introspect where our support has dropped”.
The results of the election also show the rising popularity of the DA – a party that has been historically perceived as representing white interests, and which elected its first black leader, Mmusi Maimane, last year. The opposition Democratic Alliance, which has roots in the anti-apartheid movement and was white-led until previous year, has predicted victory in Tshwane.
The results may even mark the start of a new era, distinct from the “post-apartheid” period that immediately followed the end of white-minority rule, as the African National Congress (ANC) wakes up to the changed reality that it can no longer rely on the unquestioning support of poor black voters.
Prior to releasing the results, the IEC conceded that results of the City of Johannesburg metro had still not been finalised by the time of the announcement.
Malema has drawn support with promises to nationalise banks and land and redistribute among poor black people wealth still mostly in white hands – policies that both the DA and the ANC have not found palatable. Voters are expressing discontent over the country’s unemployment rate and recent corruption scandals. Economic inequality has remained a deep-rooted problem since the end of apartheid.
According to U.S. News & World Report, the DA and EFF made progress in what were historically ANC strongholds.
Voters are losing patience with Zuma, who rattled investors in December by changing finance ministers twice in a week, sending the rand currency plummeting.
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Scandals swirling around Mr Zuma have also hurt the ANC. Opposition groups have seized on the revelation that the state paid more than 20 million dollars (£15 million) for upgrades to Mr Zuma’s private home. As we reported, the Constitutional Court recently disagreed and said “the visitors’ center, amphitheater, cattle kraal, chicken run and swimming pool at the Zuma residence, Nkandla, do not have a security rationale”. In an ironic twist, the ANC, a party founded by Nelson Mandela, suffered its first major loss in a municipality known as Nelson Mandela Bay.
