Government

2026 election results: 50% of all votes counted, with the ANC getting hammered

Staff Writer

 ·5 Nov 2026

The IEC has completed over 50% of vote counting in the 2026 Local Government Elections, with the halfway mark closely aligning with polls and the CSIR’s projections.

• Click here to see live results from the Newsday Election Results Portal.

At the midpoint of counting, the ANC remains the leading party nationally, accounting for 32% of all votes.

The once-majority party has suffered greatly at the polls, now leading the DA by only 5.7 percentage points, which currently sits at 26.3%.

This is much lower than the ANC’s outcome of 45.6% in the 2021 Local Government Elections. The DA, meanwhile, has gained, rising from 21.7% in 2021.

This is sitting quite close to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR’s) projection modelling, which saw the ANC and DA at 31.7% and 25.8% of the vote nationally, early on.

While the national vote provides a picture of the overall performance of the parties, local elections do not reflect national power.

Thus, the outcomes in major metropolitan municipalities reflect the election’s more critical results.

As in the national picture, the ANC still has a commanding presence across most major metros, with the exception of Cape Town and Tshwane—where the DA leads in the polls—and eThekwini, where the MK Party is dominant.

While 50% of all votes have been counted, the vote counts in each metro differ. As the remaining votes are counted, the picture can still change.

This is particularly true for eThekwini, where vote counts started coming in much later than the other metros, as the IEC audited the results.

Because the eThekwini count is only at 6%, the CSIR has not yet modelled a prediction for the metro. This article will be updated with the predictions once published.

The electoral commission is expected to release the outcome of the local government vote and the allocation of seats on the 257 municipal councils over the weekend.  

• Click here to see live results from the Newsday Election Results Portal.

2026 election results – South Africa 50% counted

City of Johannesburg – 26% counted

City of Tshwane – 37.6% counted

City of Ekurhuleni – 36.8% counted

City of Cape Town – 37.1% counted

Nelson Mandela Bay – 45.9% counted

Buffalo City – 72.4% counted

Manguang – 35% counted

eThekwini – 6.3% counted