LUYANDA JELE | Fragmented voter turnout challenges party strongholds

If voter disengagement is the symptom, the deeper crisis in South Africa’s local democracy is trust. The steady decline in participation in municipal elections from 58% in 2016 to 46% in 2021 reflects more than frustration; it signals a shift in how citizens relate to political power at the local level.

Voters are no longer guided by historical loyalty or ideological alignment but by their lived experience of whether services work, whether leadership is visible and whether governance produces results.

Recent by-election outcomes countrywide suggest that South Africa’s electoral landscape is undergoing a quiet but significant reconfiguration. The question is no longer which party mobilises the most voters, but which one can sustain credibility at ward level.

Elections are becoming less about national narratives and more about local performance. In this environment trust, not identity, is emerging as the decisive currency of the vote.

Patterns from recent by-elections indicate that electoral behaviour is becoming more fragmented and context-driven. The ANC, while having experienced long-term erosion in support, shows signs of stabilisation in specific municipalities where service delivery has improved or organisational structures remain intact.

These gains are not uniform and do not suggest a broad national resurgence, but they point to a critical reality: where governance becomes visible again voters are willing to return.

The EFF, meanwhile, appears to be experiencing stagnation in certain ward-level contests. While the party retains a strong national profile and continues to resonate with segments of the electorate, particularly younger voters, its ability to convert protest sentiment into sustained local electoral performance appears uneven.

In areas where governance credibility becomes a primary concern, protest politics alone is proving insufficient to secure long-term support.

The DA, by contrast, continues to benefit incrementally from perceptions of governance competence, particularly in urban centres. Its growth is not dramatic, but it has been steady and often concentrated in areas where service delivery is relatively consistent.

This reinforces a broader trend in municipalities — where administrative functionality is visible voters appear more inclined to support parties associated with operational stability.

The rise of the PA in certain municipalities adds another layer to this evolving landscape. The party has demonstrated notable growth in areas with large coloured populations, where targeted campaigning and localised messaging have resonated.

Its expansion is not national, but it reflects the increasing importance of demographic-specific strategies in a fragmented electoral environment.

Meanwhile, ActionSA maintains pockets of support in urban areas, particularly where its anticorruption positioning aligns with voter sentiment. However, its expansion beyond these strongholds remains inconsistent, suggesting that brand recognition alone is insufficient without deeper organisational reach at community level.

Perhaps the most dynamic contest is unfolding in KwaZulu-Natal where the emergence of the MK party has introduced a new variable into an already competitive political environment.

Its presence directly challenges the IFP, particularly among voters with historical and regional ties. This contest is not merely political but symbolic, reflecting competing narratives of identity, leadership and legacy within the province.

The long-term implications remain uncertain, but early indications suggest that the balance of power in KwaZulu-Natal may become increasingly fluid.

What ties these developments together is a fundamental shift in how electoral outcomes can be understood and to some extent anticipated. Increasingly, voting patterns can be interpreted through a set of measurable variables rather than broad political sentiment.

Three factors in particular appear to shape outcomes at municipal level: service delivery performance, voter turnout dynamics and the strength of local organisational structures.

Service delivery remains the most immediate and tangible driver. Where municipalities demonstrate improvements in water provision, electricity reliability, sanitation and infrastructure maintenance, voter confidence tends to stabilise or recover. Where failures persist, disengagement deepens. This relationship is not abstract; it is visible in turnout figures and electoral outcomes across multiple municipalities.

Turnout itself is equally significant. Lower turnout environments tend to favour parties with strong ground operations and loyal voter bases, while higher turnout introduces volatility and opens space for shifts in voter preference. Understanding who participates and who stays home is therefore as important as understanding overall support levels.

Organisational presence at ward level has become increasingly decisive. Parties that maintain active local structures, visible leadership and consistent engagement with communities are better positioned to retain or grow support. In contrast, parties that rely primarily on national messaging without local reinforcement struggle to convert visibility into votes.

Taken together, these factors suggest that South Africa’s electoral future will be shaped less by broad ideological shifts and more by granular ward-level realities. Elections are becoming more predictable in structure even as outcomes remain competitive. The “ownership” of the vote is no longer fixed; it is contested continuously through performance, presence and perception.

This shift carries important implications for local democracy. If trust continues to erode, voter disengagement will deepen and electoral outcomes will reflect increasingly smaller and less representative segments of the population. Conversely, where municipalities succeed in restoring credibility through effective governance and transparent communication, participation is likely to recover.

Rebuilding electoral trust will require more than campaign strategies. It will require a sustained commitment to improving service delivery, expanding access to the electoral process and strengthening civic engagement at community level.

It will also require a recognition that voters are no longer passive participants in a fixed political system but active evaluators of performance. In this context the question of who “owns” the vote has no permanent answer. Ownership is conditional, earned and easily lost.

As South Africa approaches its next local elections the emerging electoral map suggests that power will increasingly belong to those who can demonstrate not just political presence but governance that is visible, credible and responsive to the lived realities of citizens.

• Jele is a researcher and analyst specialising in electoral governance and civic participation. He is the chief researcher at African Sovereignty Electoral & Governance Services and chair of the African Sovereignty & Economic Transformation Institute.