Ipsos data published on 4 September predicted ANC support would slip to 31%, down from 45.6% in 2021, while another survey published on 9 September showed voters scattering across parties instead of handing power neatly to one machine. That’s the shape of the moment: not a clean handoff, but a fragmented field where the old dominant party is losing its grip and no new boss has fully replaced it.
Dr Ongama Mtimka, a lecturer in the department of history and political studies at Nelson Mandela University, called it “dynamic fragmentation.” He told Daily Maverick: “We are seeing a reduction in the dominance of the ANC as a party without a corresponding rise of a rival party that has got any meaningful challenge to the ANC. So, the DA is rising steadily, but remains constrained when it comes to a decisive shift of electoral preferences.”
Who Has the Power
The polling points to a political system that’s splintering under its own weight. The Common Sense and the Social Research Foundation, in data published on 9 September, showed the once-solid black vote dispersing among the ANC at 36%, Umkhonto weSizwe party, or MK, at 24%, the DA at 13%, the EFF at 12% and smaller parties at 15%. The same survey showed the ANC with 34% of voters in South Africa, the DA at 27%, MK at 15% and the EFF at 7% of likely voters.
The margin of error was 2.1%. The survey was conducted between 8 July and 31 July and used a turnout model of 53%. That matters because the whole electoral circus depends on who shows up, and the data says interest is thin. In the Ipsos poll, only a third of respondents said they were very interested in elections and politics, 34% said they were not very interested, and the rest were lukewarm.
Who Gets Crushed
The metros are where the costs of this hierarchy land. Ipsos found the ANC is likely to lose outright majorities in Mangaung and Buffalo City, sliding behind the DA in both cities, and to see significant declines in every other metro. The ANC’s election campaign has got off to a faltering start. The party is locked in a heated dispute with the Electoral Commission, or IEC, after it blamed its failure to submit candidates in key Eastern Cape municipalities on time on an alleged technical glitch. The IEC has disputed that there was a technical glitch at its end and refused to reopen its portal for the affected candidates.
The party has yet to finalise its candidates for key metros, instead publishing a list of 42 candidates across all eight metros. That’s the machinery of representation in plain view: deadlines, portals, disputes, and voters left to sort through the wreckage.
The DA, the second-biggest party by vote share, may not be celebrating either. It is predicted to lose its outright majority in the City of Cape Town as well. The polling data shows the only political party on track to win an outright majority in one of the major metros is MK, which Ipsos found is likely to retain third place nationally at 14% and has support concentrated in its stronghold of eThekwini, where it is expected to win 55% of the vote.
What They're Calling “Order”
The big city metros are among the most hotly contested sites in the country. According to the IEC, metros have the highest number of proportional representation contestants, led by Johannesburg at 80 parties and followed by Tshwane at 72 parties, eThekwini at 70 parties and Ekurhuleni at 69 parties. Widespread service delivery failures have taken center stage in each of the key metros.
Those failures aren’t abstract. In Buffalo City, the Auditor-General found the ANC-led metro recorded a deficit of R996.01-million in the 2024/25 financial year. Meter tampering and ageing infrastructure led to R187.49-million in water losses, or 41.4% of its water, and the metro recorded R831.43-million in electricity losses, or 32.2%. Its annual statement for 2024/25 found up to 90% of its electricity operational budget was spent on replacing and repairing its network because of illegal connections, and that work takes priority over normal maintenance. The annual report said Buffalo City recorded a housing backlog of 119,024, up from 115,024 in the previous year.
Cape Town’s numbers tell a similar story of managed decay. The DA is predicted to get 46%, down from 58.26% in 2021, followed by the ANC at 26%, the EFF at 11% and the Patriotic Alliance at 8%. The frontrunners for mayoral chain include DA leader and incumbent mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, EFF MP Nontando Nolutshungu and the PA’s Cheslyn Daniels. The ANC has yet to confirm its candidate. For 2024/25, the Auditor-General gave the city its first unqualified audit with findings since 2020/21. The city recorded R112.03-million in water losses, or 5.9%, and R771.97-million in electricity losses, or 11.2% of electricity generated. The housing backlog remains high at more than 400,000 units.
Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane all show the same pattern: parties jockeying for control while the basics keep slipping. Johannesburg has a housing backlog of more than 431,000 units, R2.82-billion in water losses, or 44.8%, and R5.67-billion in electricity losses, or 30%. Ekurhuleni recorded a deficit of R656.52-million, spent R2.59-billion on maintenance, equal to 4.2% of its property, plant and equipment value, and faced severe challenges from ageing infrastructure, vandalism and illegal connections that contributed to R3.07-billion in electricity losses, or 15.5%, and R1.27-billion in water losses, or 25.4%. Tshwane recorded R1.70-billion in water losses, or 39%, R3.27-billion in electricity losses, or 21%, and a housing backlog of more than 508,685 units.
In Johannesburg, the mayoral frontrunners are the DA’s Helen Zille, ActionSA’s party head and former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba and the EFF’s Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng. The ANC has yet to confirm its candidate. In Ekurhuleni, the frontrunners are DA Gauteng provincial legislature member Khathutshelo Rasilingwane, MK’s Thulani Shongwe and ActionSA’s Xolani Khumalo. In Tshwane, the frontrunners are former DA mayor Cilliers Brink, ActionSA’s incumbent mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya, FF+ candidate Willie Spies and EFF treasurer-general Omphile Maotwe.
The polling itself is unstable ground. In Johannesburg, data published by The Common Sense and the SRF showed that in the second quarter of 2026, the DA was leading with 42%, followed by the ANC at 18% and MK at 13%. The raw data indicated MK’s support was concentrated among black voters at 28%, followed by the EFF at 21%, the ANC at 18% and the DA at 17%. In Tshwane, the same study projected the DA would lead at 42%, followed by the ANC at 32%, the Freedom Front Plus at 8% and ActionSA at 7%. The study said that if those results hold in November, the DA and FF+ could form a coalition.
Joel Netshitenzhe, executive director of the Mapungubwe Institute, warned that poll interpretation can be shaped by researcher bias and can unduly influence voter sentiment. He pointed to the close political relationship between SRF staffers and the DA. “Opinion polls can act as both cause and effect of voter sentiment,” he wrote. “The pollsters purport merely to reflect preferences of the electorate. But polls can also inspire or demoralise an election campaign; and their interpretations can be weaponised to sway public opinion.”
Mtimka warned that electoral fragmentation may result in “a much higher probability that there would be a scramble for several more municipalities as they shift from dominant party systems to hung councils.” That’s the system’s own language for instability. The people below are left with the losses, the backlogs and the broken services while the parties fight over the scraps.