ANC controls three councils as PA turns 4.41% of the vote into 26 seats

The ANC has become the first party to take control of municipalities in the 2026 local government elections, holding three councils and leading in another eight with 15% of votes counted on Thursday morning, according to the Electoral Commission’s results dashboard.

The party had 120 council seats at that point, ahead of the DA on 81 and the Patriotic Alliance on 26. As Sunday World reported on 5 November, the PA was also leading in one council, the only party other than the ANC to register a council lead on the dashboard.

The national vote shares are far closer than the seat tally suggests. The ANC sat on 31.76% of valid votes against the DA’s 31.23%, a difference of 0.53 percentage points, yet its advantage in seats stood at 39. That gap is a function of how votes are distributed across municipalities rather than of national popularity, and it is the number that decides who runs which town.

The DA had not yet registered control of any council despite running the ANC almost level across the country.

It is the PA that has the most to show for a small national share. The party had 26 seats from 4.41% of votes counted, placing it sixth in the national vote standings and third in the seat rankings. The MK Party, third nationally on 5.13%, had four seats. The EFF, on 4.94%, had six. The Freedom Front Plus, on slightly more national support than the PA at 4.46%, had five. ActionSA had three seats on 2.34%, the IFP two on 2.32%, and the PMC two on 0.26%. The SACP, contesting separately from the ANC, had one seat on 2.56%, with ICOSA and independent candidates on one seat each.

Set against the completed 2021 municipal results, the early 2026 percentages point to a substantial slide for the ANC, which finished those elections on about 45.6%. The DA’s early share of 31.23% is well above the 21.7% it took in 2021, and the PA’s 4.41% is up from roughly 1%. The EFF’s early 4.94% is less than half its 2021 result of about 10.3%.

None of those comparisons establishes a final gain or loss. With 85% of the count still outstanding, results from municipalities with different political allegiances could move the national percentages and the seat rankings considerably.

What the count does show is that the ANC holds the early advantage in councils and seats, that the DA is its closest challenger in votes but not in council representation, and that the PA is converting a modest national share into a seat block larger than several parties that polled ahead of it. For voters, that last figure is the one to watch: in a council where no party has a majority, 26 seats spread across the right wards can decide who sits in the mayoral chain.