South Africa headed to the polls in November

South Africa will hold its next municipal elections on 4 November, President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a post on X.

The country holds municipal elections every five years, and South Africans had been waiting to know the date of the next local government vote.

The biggest political party, Ramaphosa’s ANC, has tended to do worse in municipal elections than national ones, as voters vent frustrations over deteriorating public infrastructure like roads and water pipes.

In the 2021 municipal elections, the ANC won less than half of the vote for the first time since the 1994 end of white minority rule.

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That result turned out to be a forerunner for the 2024 national election, when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority, after which it formed a broad coalition government that saw Ramaphosa remain head of state.  — Sfundo Parakozov, Nilutpal Timsina and Anathi Madubela, (c) 2026 Reuters