By Mvume Ndimba | 041Online
South Africa’s 2026 municipal elections have delivered a significant political shake-up, with the Democratic Alliance emerging as the largest party in several contested metros and the ANC facing another difficult electoral reckoning. For 041Online columnist Mvume Ndimba, the results raise uncomfortable questions about race, political loyalty, accountability and the future of the country.
A Blue Wave Across South Africa
It is done, my fellow South Africans!
The Municipal elections have concluded with an absolutely stunning result for the Democratic Alliance. Many ANC strongholds fell in 2026, finally showing that the ANC is indeed fallible.
Millions of South Africans flooded the timeline with their gnarled, misshapen thumbs, showing that they took the time to exercise their right to vote the ANC out of metros once seen as sure victories.
Across the pond, we saw a similar blue domination as the Democratic Party of America pushed the Republicans out in an equally stunning victory. We wait with bated breath to see how Donald Trump responds (probably with some AI).
Why I Chose Not to Vote
I’ve never made a secret of my open disdain for Helen Zille and her party; as such, I elected to abstain from voting this year. I looked at the ballot sheet, considered all the parties available to me and realised two critical things: 1. Based purely on foreign policy and the handling of low-income areas, the DA will never get a vote from me. It is a personal choice that I am not ashamed to admit out loud, and 2. There is no party I could give my vote to in good conscience.
You see, people love to pretend that politics is somehow divorced from race, but the fact of the matter is, politics (especially in this country), is intrinsically tied to race and racial identity. There is a clear and obvious attempt by the DA to court the “black vote” (see Helen in the gusheshe for reference). There is a clear effort from the two “white” parties to send a message that the ANC needs to be removed from power and clear message from the “black” parties (literally every party that isn’t DA or VV+) to put the fear of Apartheid 2.0 into the hearts and minds of voters, and there is an equally clear attitude from the voters of either side of the political isle to disparage voters opposite from them.
Racists came up with some new slurs, like 30%er to describe black South Africans, Black South Africans are claiming that apartheid 2.0 is on the way, black people are fighting amongst each other, calling each other names you’ve only ever heard in movies about slavery and all this over some municipal elections!
I often wondered what this day would feel like, how I would respond to the possibility of a DA-run South Africa in 2029 and for once, for the first time in my adult life, I feel optimistic about our political future.
What the Election Results Really Mean
Now, before I go on screaming DA 2029, I need to make a few very important facts clear. First of all, the ANC is the biggest loser of these elections. Support for the ruling party has fallen significantly since the 2021 municipal elections, dropping from approximately 45.6% to 30.76% nationally. The DA received 24.64% of the vote and emerged as the largest party in both Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay, although neither result gave the party an outright majority. Both metros will require coalition arrangements to determine who governs.
So what does this mean for us as South Africans and more specifically, citizens of Nelson Mandela Bay, where the DA has emerged as the largest party?
Firstly, the DA needs to perform in the next 3 years, they need to make a meaningful impact in the local municipalities they now run, they need to continue to do what they did to get them in power in the first place, they need to be as close to perfect as possible in order to maintain the hold they have over these municipalities and create a case for themselves in the general elections, when it really counts.
The ANC’s Challenge: Reinvention or Regression?
Second, it means the ANC has a challenge of it’s own. The ANC needs to aggressively rebrand itself, from a party of revolution in the 80s, to a party of development in the 90s and 2000s, to a party of regression in the 2010s and 2020s. They now need the 2030s to be a decade of rebirth. Career politicians who have suckled at the teat of the ruling party for decades need to be removed. The party needs young, fresh ideas, the party needs new leadership and not a single individual currently employed by the ANC qualifies. The next 3 years need to be focused on regrouping, reorganising and earning back the trust of the people who owe so much to the African National Congress.
In 2024 I said that the ANC had never been weaker as an organisation, today I am vindicated in that assumption, I said the DA could not effectively campaign to absorb the votes the ANC lost through their incompetence, while I still believe this is true, and the whole campaign the DA ran felt racist and condescending, they got the job done when it mattered, and I am happy to see them get over the line in such an emphatic fashion, in PE specifically.
Nelson Mandela Bay and the Power of the Vote
While the ANC remains the largest party nationally, the DA’s strong performances in Johannesburg and Gqeberha, a long-contested battle-ground metro, show a trend towards a DA that actually could one day govern this country, and that is a scary concept to consider.
At the time of writing, the count was still underway, but for all intents and purposes the game was about done. Gqeberha has said enough is enough, I suppose, and that’s the beauty of this thing we call democracy, the will of the people actually matters when it comes down to deciding our destiny.
Across the Pond: America’s Political Shake-Up
Of course it wouldn’t be a political wrap-up without a quick summary of events over the pond; your US Midterm elections, which determine control of Congress and include various state and local elections, can be summed up quite simply… “Trump lost big”. Like that’s the best summary I can give you.
That party ran on bigotry, Christian values, and a strange disdain for pronouns… and voters responded by handing Democrats control of Congress and electing a diverse range of representatives. Among the historic results was the election of Chris Pappas as the first openly gay man elected to the US Senate, while Sarah McBride, who became the first openly transgender member of Congress in 2024, won re-election in Delaware.
Democracy Only Works When We Participate
As funny as it was seeing the “right” meltdown over their American elections, and as unsettling as it was watching black and white South Africans react to the results in Johannesburg and Gqeberha, I think the real lesson from these elections is that we as a planet are tired of corruption; we’re tired of being told one thing and then seeing another; we want to see our taxes go to something meaningful for once; and at the polls, we all (well, you all) made the effort to make your voices heard. This democracy thing doesn’t work if we don’t participate, and I suppose participating in removing the rot is better than doing what I did: not participating at all.
In 2029, I fully intend to use my vote, because I’ve been having real weird dreams about Winnie Mandela lately, and that needs to stop, I just hope that one of these parties does what they need to do in order make their case undeniable when it comes time to pick the most important person in South Africa.
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