The November polls could redraw the balance of power, rattle Ramaphosa and reshape coalition politics ahead of 2029
If the once-dominant ANC drops to similar electoral levels to the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the 4 November 2026 local government elections, which it is likely to do, or to even lower levels, which is not unlikely, this will upend the power dynamics in the government of national unity (GNU).
If the two parties receive similar levels of electoral support, it will essentially make the ANC, in political, state and public perceptions, the equal of the DA.
If the ANC falls below the DA, it will, as far as public perception is concerned, make the DA the largest party in the country, although the ANC would remain the largest party in the national government based on its 39.7% vote in the 2024 national and provincial elections.
In a scenario where the DA levels with the ANC or the ANC falls below the DA, the ANC might be the largest party in the GNU but it will be seen by voters as a party that has lost a national election, rather than the local elections.
The ANC, typically like other African liberation movements, sees democracy in a narrow way — as majority-rule rather than as governing in the widest interests of a diverse nation. The ANC has governed the GNU as if it is the majority party, insisting its policies automatically become the government’s policy, while operating in a coalition government, demanding that parties agree on new joint coalition policies rather than adopting the party with the largest majority’s policies.
That behaviour has been an existential threat to the stability of the GNU because it has forced its partners to oppose the party’s policies in court after the ANC refused to collaborate with its GNU coalition partners to come up with new common GNU policies.
If the DA gets a percentage of the vote which is closer to that of the ANC or even higher in the elections, the power dynamics in the GNU and the state will change in such a way that it will force the ANC to treat the DA as an equal power when it comes to policy-making and decision-making.
This would force a shift away from the current GNU policy-making pro-cess, whereby the ANC insists its party policies automatically become the GNU policies rather than coming up with new joint policies with its coalition partners, which is the norm globally for successful national coalition governments.
It is possible that former ANC and South African president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) will take many municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.
It will also further erode the base of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in KwaZulu-Natal because many young people who would have voted for the EFF now see the MK Party as a better alternative. A poor performance by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in KwaZulu-Natal will be damaging to the party’s 2029 national elections prospects. The IFP has battled to sell to voters its strong governance performance in the ministries it runs in the national and provincial KwaZulu-Natal governments of unity.
Dominating the election vote in KwaZulu-Natal will give the MK Party a governmental powerbase, control of local state policy and access to state resources and patronage from which it can build a stronger national base. A controlling win for the MK Party will reduce the provincial power of the ANC even if the ANC is part of the provincial GNU with the DA and the IFP.
A big win for the MK Party in KwaZulu-Natal municipalities will also create a perceptions that the MK Party is a larger party, make it appear as if it is the next big thing and encourage disgruntled ANC members to give it a try.
This would boost the MK Party electoral momentum for the 2029 national and provincial elections.
The EFF dominate student representative councils at higher education institutions. Of course, higher education institutions have low turnouts for SRC elections and only certain demographics appear to vote in them — with the EFF’s demographic turning out consistently in student political elections.
The EFF will probably score in municipal wards in or neighbouring higher education institutions precincts, where the party has won SRC councils.
The challenge for the EFF is that its youth supporters often do not pitch on election day or that many voters might support the party’s populist stances in public but will not vote for it to get into government, having little confidence in the party’s capacity to govern.
Mature black voters also appear not to be a natural EFF constituency. The Patriotic Alliance (PA) is likely to push the DA in rural Western Cape, the Northern Cape and parts of the Eastern Cape and Gauteng. The PA has built a seemingly strong network of branches in these areas. The PA, MK Party and EFF have copied the ANC’s successful building of community branches to use as campaign troops.
Sadly, other new parties, the non-racial, constitutionalist and social democratic parties, such as Rise Mzansi and Build One South Africa (Bosa), have not made building such large-scale community branches as fundamental to their operations, which is critical for political parties if they want to get mass votes in South Africa.
The DA is feeling the pressure from the PA on the populist flank for the coloured vote. The PA is building its stranglehold on a message saying that the coloured community has been marginalised in the ANC majority-government dispensation and that the DA was also not prioritising struggling coloured communities sufficiently.
The DA is also facing pressure from its right Afrikaner front, where the Freedom Front Plus appears to be surging.
If the DA does not increase its vote in the local elections, while the ANC declines and the MK Party PA and EFF rise, voters will perceive the DA as having reached its electoral ceiling.
If constitutional and social democratic parties such as Rise Mzansi, Good, Bosa and ActionSA do badly in the local elections, the question will have to be asked whether these parties should continue operating as small standalone parties or merge as quickly as possible before the 2029 national and provincial elections.
The combination of the ANC doing badly nationally in the November elections compared to the DA and losing ground in KwaZulu-Natal to the MK Party would probably cause such a shock in the ANC that it might plunge the party, torn apart by factional in-fighting, into freefall.
It might fuel anti-Ramaphosa factions in the ANC to rally against the president, abandon him in his fight to prevent impeachment and compel ANC leaders to eject him from the South African state presidency when a new ANC party president is elected at the party’s 2027 national elective conference, rather than allowing him to complete the state presidency until the 2029 national and provincial elections.
If the ANC does badly in the local elections, Ramaphosa’s ability to use his influence to push for a moderate, constitutional and social democratic ANC candidate to replace him as ANC president will be severely weakened.
A bad electoral performance could strengthen populist groups in the ANC and might propel a populist candidate into the ANC presidency at the party’s 2027 national elective conference.
It would also increase the sentiment among ANC leaders to push for a rapprochement with the MK Party and the EFF — if these two parties do well in the local government elections.
If a new populist ANC president is elected at the ANC’s 2027 national elective conference and becomes the state president thereafter, he or she might restructure the GNU to include the EFF and MK Party and exclude the former multiparty charter representatives, the DA, IFP and Freedom Front Plus. William Gumede is the founder of the Democracy Works Foundation and the author of the best-selling Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg).
The article is based on his discussion on “South Africa’s Next President” at the recent Woordfees in Stellenbosch.