Durban voters turn on the ANC: 74% blame it for the city's collapse, MK party sits on 48%

Ten days before the 4 November local government elections, an eNCA MarkData survey puts the MK party on 48% in eThekwini, just short of an outright majority in the metro the ANC has dominated for most of the democratic era, and places the DA in front in Tshwane.

The survey polled just over 1,000 people in each of the two metros, part of a programme covering six metros and more than 6,000 respondents in total. eNCA’s elections analyst Dwayne Susman said the eThekwini work was conducted face to face, while Tshwane used a mix of telephonic and face-to-face interviews. The poll carries a margin of error of 3% and fieldwork ran between August and September 2026.

In eThekwini the DA is second on 25.2%, the ANC is on 14.5%, the IFP on 6%, the EFF on 2.5%, with the Patriotic Alliance, ActionSA and the Freedom Front Plus further back. The ANC lost its outright majority in the metro in 2021 and has since governed through coalitions. The MK party took 48% of the vote in eThekwini in the 2024 national election.

Groundwork Collective’s Balungile Dlouly, speaking from Durban, said the party has held the ground support it won in 2024, and that its support is drawn from people moving away from the ANC and the EFF rather than from new voters. She noted that eThekwini runs on an executive committee system, so even a party with a majority does not take every executive seat.

Residents were also asked how well their municipality is run. In eThekwini, 29.7% said it has been extremely badly run and 28.6% said not well run, against 27.3% who said averagely well run and 8.7% very well run. Asked who should carry the blame for poor service delivery, 74% named the ANC, with the DA on 5.3%, ActionSA on 3.9% and the EFF on 1.7%.

The Daily Maverick’s Ferial Haffajee said the ANC’s position is a very tall order to turn around in the remaining days, and that the party’s own campaign messaging acknowledges things have gone wrong while pointing to national work on Eskom and Transnet. Dlouly said the blame lands on the party that has run the city for nearly three decades, and that bringing in a mayor who has done better than his predecessors has come too late to change the mood.

On the 2022 floods, 59% of eThekwini respondents said the city has not done well in fixing the damage, against 28.4% who said it has done as well as it could.

Asked who should be mayor, DA incumbent councillor Hanif got the highest share at 24.6%. Duduzane Zuma, who was not on the ballot when the survey was done, came second on 18.5%, and an ANC candidate drew 9.7%. Current mayor Cyril Xaba was on 13.9% and the IFP’s candidate on 8.8%.

In Tshwane the DA leads on 33.9%, the ANC on 24.9%, the EFF on 12.3%, ActionSA on 10.7%, the Freedom Front Plus on 7.9%, the MK party on 5.2% and the Patriotic Alliance on 2.1%. Four parties clear 10%. The metro is the only one of those surveyed not governed by either the ANC or the DA, with ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya holding the mayoral chain in a coalition with the ANC, the EFF and others.

Moya is far more popular than her party. Asked who should be mayor, she leads on 25.9%, some 16 points ahead of ActionSA’s party support, with DA deputy federal leader Cilliers Brink on 20%. ANC candidates Eugene Modise on 13.5% and Clangie Mali, on 10.2% in the survey, together outpoll Brink. Dlouly said Moya has elevated the ActionSA brand through sustained engagement with residents, and that the party is likely to be worth more at the coalition table than its fourth place suggests.

On service delivery, Tshwane residents were the least negative of the metros bar Cape Town. Some 29.3% said the municipality has not been well run and 27.2% said it has been extremely badly run, against 27.1% who said averagely well run and 11.9% very well run, a net negative of 18 percentage points.

Asked whether Tshwane has managed the challenges of water supply, 63% said no, the municipality is hopeless, against 28% who said it has done as well as it could. The survey was conducted before the water crisis in Bronkhorstspruit, where the broadcast reported hundreds of people falling ill and more than 400 cases of severe gastrointestinal illness linked to unchlorinated water.

On hostility towards foreign workers in Tshwane, 40% of respondents said people in the capital are losing faith in government and believe they must take action themselves. A further 28% said Johannesburg is used to foreign workers but in Tshwane it is more recent, and 19% said people in Tshwane are particularly angry about the issue. Only 11% said the question is wrong and there is not much hostile feeling.

Susman said the issue helps explain ActionSA’s relatively strong showing in the capital, the party being most associated with a hard line on foreign nationals. Dlouly cautioned that municipalities have limited scope on immigration, which sits with national government, and that the most a metro can do is municipal planning, bylaw enforcement and permit checks, and warned voters may be angry after the election when little changes on that front.

The broadcast also turned to political killings in KwaZulu-Natal, where three ANC activists were shot dead in the south of the city a few weeks ago. Dlouly, a former public representative and MP, said the killings are usually within parties rather than between them, driven by patronage and tightly contested seats, and that parties need to change their internal rules.

The full survey, covering corruption, water and who voters want to lead the country in 2029, is due to be unpacked on eNCA’s programme next Sunday. The source broadcast is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHPdLmSEglE.