Top 12 political parties in SA’s 2026 municipal elections
We bring you the best-performing political parties from South Africa’s recently concluded 2026 local government elections.
Last week, on Wednesday 4 November 2026, millions of South Africans voted in Mzansi’s sixth municipal elections. With 29,227,639 registered voters, 15.2 million (52%) turned out and cast their votes.
The 2026 local government elections marked further technological progress, including the introduction of a virtual Results Operations Centre (ROC), which replaced the traditional physical model and aimed to expand access to electoral information, engagement and transparency.
While addressing the nation on Sunday 8 November 2026, IEC CEO Sy Mamabolo revealed that more than 100 million ballot papers were printed and 56,000 voter management devices were deployed across voting stations, supported by 188,000 electoral personnel.
The elections involved 213 councils, 10,526 available seats, 520 political parties, 636 independent candidates and about 137,000 candidates countrywide.
Mamabolo said the figures were more than operational statistics, reflecting the scale of coordination required to deliver the elections.
Below are the top 10 political parties in the 2026 local government elections of South Africa.
| Political Party | Votes | Percentage | Seat Won |
|---|---|---|---|
| African National Congress (ANC) | 9,160,614 | 30.76% | 3,282 |
| Democratic Alliance (DA) | 7,338,553 | 24.64% | 1,722 |
| Umkhonto Wesizwe Party (MKP) | 2,910,914 | 9.77% | 799 |
| Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) | 1,851,954 | 6.22% | 592 |
| ActionSA | 1,689,369 | 5.67% | 320 |
| Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) | 1,396,919 | 4.69% | 488 |
| Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) | 890,081 | 2.99% | 249 |
| South African Communist Party (SACP) | 709,104 | 2.38% | 271 |
| Patriotic Alliance (PA) | 588,331 | 1.98% | 192 |
| African Transformation Movement (ATM) | 291,919 | 0.98% | 98 |
| Service Delivery Party (SDP) | 131,115 | 0.44% | 46 |
| Rise Tsantsabane Communities (RTC) | 13,570 | 0.05% | 9 |
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