The African National Congress (ANC) enters the upcoming local government elections under unprecedented pressure, besieged by administrative problems from within and a shifting electorate from without.
The party’s downward trajectory is a matter of record. It slipped below 50% in the 2021 municipal elections for the first time since 1994 and its decline accelerated sharply in the 2024 general election, where it secured just 40.18% of the national vote.
The ANC is also locked in a dispute with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC). The ANC says a system problem prevented it from submitting some candidates on time; the IEC disputes this and said it would not entertain requests for an extension.
Reasons for the decline
According to political analyst Professor Musa Xulu, the party’s decline stems partly from its adoption of liberal democratic constitutionalism at the expense of African cultural politics.
“Liberal democracy is a good system; however, it is difficult to implement in Africa in a population that for centuries has lived under cultural politics,” Xulu said.
He argued that the ANC should have recognised this when the Constitution was drafted in 1996 and found a way to combine liberal democratic values with African traditions.
“People had high hopes for the liberal democracy that came with ANC rule; however, they have realised that it has not changed things to meet their expectations,” he said.
“People are now turning to traditionalism, which is why you see parties like the IFP growing. People resonate with such parties better than liberal parties.”
He also said uMkhonto weSizwe Party leader Jacob Zuma had appeared to abandon the liberal democratic principles he had practised in the ANC for decades when he formed the MK Party.
Candidate-selection disputes
Compounding this philosophical rift is an operational dilemma: the democratisation of candidate selection. The ANC allowed local communities to participate in selecting municipal candidates alongside branch structures. However, political analyst Professor Ntsikelelo Breakfast observes that this hybrid approach has created new problems.
“Democratisation of the selection process has now backfired for the ANC. The councillor selected in this way becomes independent from the ANC because he can argue that he was not elected by the ANC, but by the community,” Breakfast argued.
The ANC’s 2026 local government elections candidate-selection rules, guidelines and procedures seek to balance community participation with party accountability. They state that councillors are expected to account to communities, as well as to the ANC caucus and its constitutional structures.
Candidates are also expected to observe party discipline, its rules and its decisions.
The unresolved question is who ultimately controls the councillor once the selection meeting is over. That question has become particularly uncomfortable as the party has struggled with candidate selection in several areas.
In Cape Town, the Western Cape High Court ordered the IEC not to publish two ANC candidates in wards 33 and 88.
The court interdicted the IEC from certifying and publishing the two individuals as official ward candidates pending the finalisation of the matter.
In the Eastern Cape, the ANC failed to submit ward or proportional-representation candidates in Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill, while proportional-representation lists were affected in Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley.
While this matter is linked to its dispute with the IEC regarding the system used for the submission of lists, an Eastern Cape ANC member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, attributed some of the problems to a leadership vacuum and legal battles surrounding the province’s structures.
The party failed to hold a provincial elective conference in the Eastern Cape earlier this year because of a legal challenge raised by some disgruntled members. When the term of office of the provincial executive committee expired, it was disbanded.
However, the party’s attempt to establish an interim leadership task team was rejected by the Makhanda High Court. The former provincial executive committee was later temporarily reinstated but this was just weeks before the IEC submission deadline.
In addition, the ANC removed 350 prospective councillor candidates during its final vetting process with qualification requirements and criminal records being among the reasons for their removal.
The disputes have exposed the difficulty of running a large political organisation through a process that is both participatory and tightly controlled.
Governance failures
Lawyer and political analyst Dr Bhasela Yalezo believes the ANC’s candidate problems are serious, but not necessarily the party’s biggest crisis.
For Yalezo, the deeper problem is that the ANC has failed to implement its own policies.
“They have done a great job in terms of giving their votes away and weakening themselves further and further without even any other person having to do anything,” Yalezo said.
He argued that even if the candidate submission problems had not happened, the ANC would still be facing declining support.
“The biggest crisis actually is non-implementation of their own policies,” he said.
The ANC itself has acknowledged the problem of municipal underperformance. Its review of its manifesto identified challenges including financial viability, governance instability, institutional weaknesses, corruption and service-delivery failures.
The party's 2026 manifesto lays out an ambitious six-point plan to fix basic services, rebuild municipal finances, and professionalise municipal government. But the ultimate verdict on the party's promises will come from voters on November 4.
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