The 2016 local government elections results showed a big decline in ANC support in South Africa’s major cities, with the DA gaining in popularity.
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Outside of the metros, the DA won 19 municipalities with an outright majority.
The ANC and the DA are neck-and-neck in Tshwane and Johannesburg.
Since the end of apartheid, the ANC had enjoyed an iron electoral grip on these areas.
The local leadership added that it had started negotiating with other political parties to form governing coalitions where it did not win a majority.
In his first public remarks since the vote’s outcome, Zuma said South Africa was a “democracy where differences of political opinion and diverse political preferences are allowed to flourish”.
This includes eThekwini, the City of Johannesburg, City of Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Buffalo City and the City of Cape Town. She would not divulge which party the ANC was negotiating with.
“We’ve lost Nelson Mandela Bay, we’ve conceded that we’ve lost it”, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said. The party, competing in its first election under Mmusi Maimane, its first black leader, are now ahead in the region by 50.6% to 38.5%. The party has its roots in the Progressive Party led by liberal whites who campaigned against apartheid during the era of white rule.
Parties have 90 days to form governments, failing which there will be a rerun of municipal elections.
While the final results have not yet been finalised by the IEC, Mashinini has reiterated that they are within their target time of having the results process concluded by 6pm tomorrow. Millions of urban voters are now looking beyond its liberation struggle credentials and focusing on an economy teetering on the edge of a recession.
Voters, facing a lack of jobs and poor basic services, have been incensed by a string of corruption scandals that have engulfed Zuma.
The radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party led by Julius Malema, Zuma’s one-time protege but now arch-foe, came a distant third in the local elections, with about 10 percent of the vote.
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The poll represents the most significant municipal elections in the ANC’s twenty-two year reign, with many analysts viewing the vote as a plebiscite on the performance of the government and embattled president Jacob Zuma.
