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Local government elections
4 November 2026
IEC final seat allocation
Hung Councils
Seven of the eight metros came back without a majority. The largest party in each still needs partners to reach the halfway line. Pick a council to see the chamber, then build a coalition and watch the numbers move.
- Metropolitan councils
- 8
- Without a majority
- 7
- Closest to a majority
- 8 seats short
Nelson Mandela Bay - Deal options
- 3 under discussion
Where the votes sit, by province
Local vote shares · not provincial governmentLocal elections do not change provincial governments; those were set in 2024 and run to 2029. What follows is each province's aggregate local vote and the pairings that would clear half of it — an indicator of which blocs dominate councils there, not a government that gets formed. Second and third places include counts that were not yet final when published.
Signals
What the daily tracker is reading. Headlines only — the paths above get re-cut when something material lands.
How to read this
A minimum winning coalition is one where every member is needed: remove any one party and the bloc falls below the majority. Larger blocs are possible, but they are not the interesting ones — they hide who actually holds the balance.
Three deals are on the table this week. An ANC-led bloc with ActionSA, the EFF, MK and the PA would cover all seven hung metros, with ActionSA taking Tshwane and the ANC keeping Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. A DA–ANC pact clears six metros and needs the IFP in eThekwini. A DA–ActionSA pact is conditional on the DA dropping Helen Zille in Johannesburg and Cilliers Brink in Tshwane. The ANC's national working committee meets on Monday and its NEC on Thursday to adopt a framework.
Red lines are the stated positions. Firm: the DA rules out MK and the EFF, and the UDM in Buffalo City rules out the ANC. Softer or reported: ActionSA calls a DA coalition "very, very slim" while Zille and Brink remain in prominent roles; MK candidates rule out the DA. The ANC says it is open to talks and may yet choose opposition.
Caveats
Mangaung uses the IEC final figures (ANC 35, DA 34); an earlier provisional count showed 36–33. Johannesburg and eThekwini do not yet publish seat splits below their top five parties, so the remainder is shown as a single bloc — in practice that bloc would need several separate agreements.
Small parties with too few seats to change the arithmetic are pooled. They still count, but no single one of them can move the majority line on its own.