Ramaphosa votes in Hyde Park as the ANC fights to hold the metros

President Cyril Ramaphosa voted in the Local Government Elections at his voting district in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, the African National Congress said in a post on its official X account on Wednesday.

The party said Ramaphosa cast his ballot at Hyde Park High School and was accompanied by his wife, Dr Tshepo Motsepe. The post was tagged to the party’s election campaign, with the hashtags #VoteANC2026, #LetsBuildBetterCommunitiesTogether and #MyVoteIsANC.

The ANC framed the day around its record in local government. The slogan it attached to the President’s vote, “Let’s build better communities together”, is the party’s own summary of what it says it is offering voters in the municipal sphere, the tier of government responsible for water, electricity reticulation, refuse collection, roads and local planning.

That record is the ground the party is defending. Municipal services, billing and infrastructure backlogs have been the subject of sustained public complaint in Johannesburg and across the metros, and the ANC enters these elections asking voters to judge it on its stewardship of them.

The party has not, in the material it published, set out new commitments for the next municipal term beyond the campaign framing above. What it has done is put its sitting President in front of the cameras on polling day at a Johannesburg voting station, which is the standard move for a governing party seeking to project confidence in its own heartland.

The ANC’s post did not give turnout figures, results or an assessment of how the party expected to perform. Counting is under way.