DA tops Gauteng as ANC slides to 21% with a third of the vote counted

The DA is projected to take the largest share of the vote in Gauteng’s local municipalities, with the ANC sliding to second place on 21.17% in the province, according to the CSIR’s latest election model.

The projection landed as the Independent Electoral Commission worked through counting, with more than 35% of the vote tallied at the time the CSIR published its figures. MyBroadband reported the modelling.

The ANC’s Gauteng number sits well below the CSIR’s national projection of 31.69%, a gap that puts the province out of step with the party’s position across the country. ActionSA is projected third in Gauteng on 17.33%, close enough behind the ANC that the ordering of the two could shift as more votes are declared. The EFF is fourth on 6.05% and the Freedom Front Plus fifth on 5.13%.

If it holds, the projection describes a province where the DA has made real gains and the ANC has continued to lose ground. It does not describe a change of government. The Gauteng provincial legislature is chosen in provincial elections, which run alongside the national ballot and are next due in 2029. A strong showing in the municipal count does not hand the DA the province, and it does not by itself settle which party leads a coalition in any metro.

The CSIR’s model is not a sample of voters. It works from historical voting patterns and from the way results arrive district by district during the count, grouping voting districts with similar characteristics so that it can estimate an outcome before every district has reported. The agency has used the approach since the 1999 general election and has run it in national and municipal contests since then. It folds in newly declared results as counting proceeds and issues fresh projections as the picture changes.

This is the third set of figures the CSIR has released in this election cycle. The agency has said its projections carry a margin of error of 2% to 3% against the final outcome, and that the estimates tighten as more votes are counted.

That caveat matters in Gauteng, where the gap between the ANC and ActionSA is a little under four percentage points, wider than the stated margin but not by much, and where the ordering of the smaller parties could still move. The distance between the DA and the ANC is larger and would take a substantial swing in the undeclared vote to close.

The national picture the CSIR projects is a different story from the provincial one, with the ANC on 31.69% across the country against 21.17% in Gauteng. Readers following the count should treat both numbers as estimates until the IEC completes its declarations.

Source: MyBroadband, CSIR’s Gauteng projection for the 2026 local government election