The DA won the most votes in Johannesburg. Helen Zille may still not become its mayor.
That is the awkward position facing the Democratic Alliance after last Wednesday’s municipal elections. It is also why coalition talks now matter more than the count that came before them.
The DA finished first in Johannesburg on about 35%, according to the Electoral Commission’s final figures. The ANC took about 20%. ActionSA followed on 16.27%. Nobody came close to a majority.
The pattern repeats nationwide. Seven of the eight metros are hung. Cape Town is the exception, where the DA won 56.42% outright.
Sunday World counted 126 hung councils among the 195 declared by Saturday afternoon. After the 2021 vote, the figure was about 70.
The ANC is still the largest party nationally, but only just. Reuters reported that, with 99% of votes counted, it had about 31% against 25% for the DA. In 2021, the ANC won 45.59%.
Analyst Tessa Dooms, director of the Rivonia Circle, said on Monday that the DA’s rise owes more to that slide than to its own growth. There was “more disappointment in this election than there was hope”, she said.
So the DA leads the vote in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni without a majority in any of them.
That hands the smaller parties real weight. Because South Africa sets no minimum vote threshold for council seats, broadcaster Mandy Wiener has noted, even tiny parties can become kingmakers once coalition talks begin.
ActionSA is smaller than the DA in all three Gauteng metros. Its leader, Herman Mashaba, still says he can set the terms. Speaking at the Electoral Commission’s results centre on Sunday night, he said the party had begun exploring deals with both the DA and the ANC.
His conditions are blunt. He has ruled out coalition talks with the DA if Zille is part of its negotiating team. Tshwane stays with ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya, and the DA can have Ekurhuleni.
“Nasiphi Moya must continue serving all the residents of Tshwane,” he said.
ActionSA won 22.07% in Tshwane, worth 48 of the 214 council seats. That is the leverage behind the demand.
Dooms warned against treating metros as bargaining chips in coalition talks. Overlooking Moya because of a deal elsewhere, she said, would be a mistake if she is the strongest candidate.
Sunday World, citing a source, reported that the DA has floated a package for the three Gauteng metros. ActionSA would keep Tshwane, the DA would take Ekurhuleni, and both would govern Johannesburg with Zille as mayor. Neither party has confirmed it.
On paper, that offer collides with Mashaba’s red line.
The feud has a paper trail. Mashaba resigned as Johannesburg’s mayor in October 2019, after Zille returned as chair of the DA’s federal council. In 2024, ActionSA helped remove the DA’s Cilliers Brink as Tshwane mayor, then took the post with ANC support.
So when Mashaba says he is talking to both sides, the ANC option is not a bluff.
The DA says its Federal Executive met on Saturday. It told the party to open coalition talks with parties that share a commitment to “clean and accountable government”, the rule of law and non-racialism.
DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis described the first calls as “more discussions about having discussions”. He expects formal coalition talks to begin in the coming days. He also argues the largest party in any coalition should expect the mayoral office.
Zille has her own red line going into coalition talks. On election day she said she would rather sit in opposition than run a nine-party coalition dependent on the EFF. She has since said she prefers a smaller arrangement with the ANC or ActionSA.
The ANC is playing hard to get. Secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says the party is “not in the business of begging for a mayorship”. He named three routes: join coalitions, sit in opposition, or back minority administrations through confidence-and-supply deals.
Chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli has not ruled out the DA, but said Zille’s Johannesburg campaign left a bad taste. He pointed to ActionSA as a possible partner in several areas. The ANC’s national leadership meets on Thursday to fix its framework for coalition talks.
Jacob Zuma’s MK Party is third nationally on about 10%. It won 38.29% in eThekwini, more than 10 points short of a majority. It enters coalition talks with a national negotiating team and wants partners who share its line on land and economic transformation.
ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont takes the opposite view. “We don’t think local government is ideological,” he said.
EFF leader Julius Malema has floated an ANC, EFF, MK and SACP bloc to keep the DA out. He also rejects any deal that gives ActionSA two cities.
IFP leader Velenkosini Hlabisa expects to lead in 19 municipalities and govern five outright. In the Western Cape, where 16 municipalities are hung, Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie says four parties have already approached him for coalition talks.
The clock is unforgiving. The Municipal Structures Act gives municipal managers 14 days from a council’s declaration to convene its first meeting. The first order of business is electing a speaker, who then oversees the mayoral vote.
That leaves about two weeks of coalition talks across more than 120 councils. South Africa is also still waiting for its coalition legislation to take effect, so parties are bargaining without a dedicated rulebook.
The DA won the votes. The smaller parties will decide what those votes are worth.
