Yesterday this newspaper published an analysis suggesting that in the region of 100 local government councils may be hung after the November elections, with no single party holding a majority. In scores of these, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC) will hold a collective majority, but will also have the options of forming governments with smaller parties. That could play out in any one of three ways, each of which would set a blueprint for the future of South Africa’s national politics.

South Africa could see a record number of hung municipalities after November’s local elections as ANC support falls into the 30-percentiles, down from the 46% recorded in the 2021 local elections. In that year, 66 of the country’s 213 municipalities were hung, but the ANC’s further decline could push in the region of 100 councils below the majority threshold, especially as the party is now polling below 50% among black, township, rural, and poorer voters, and not just among the middle classes.

Should that all play out, what are the options for handling 100 or so coalition negotiations?

The simplest thing in terms of short-term stability is for the ANC and the DA to strike a pact and say that wherever the two parties have a collective majority, they will govern together according to a set formula. The trouble is that ANC rebels, such as those in Gauteng, will likely oppose this, and the Ramaphosa administration will continue to hedge itself by entertaining the rebels on the one hand while striking deals with the DA on the other, even as it seeks to sabotage the DA’s prospects in those deals.

Even where a broad ANC/DA pact is struck, therefore, the effect will likely be much along the lines of what the national GNU has produced: relative stability accompanied by near-zero reform and little improvement in people’s lives. In other words, a holding pattern just waiting for a more powerful force to come along and undo it.

A second option is that chaos reigns. Scores of negotiations take off separately from each other. The chaos would be vast, as a deal struck along certain lines in place A may undo a deal struck in place B. A party may say, “We backed you on the mayorship in A and B and C, but now you’ve cut us out in D, so we are backing out of the deals in A, B, and C.” A cascading breakdown of local government order follows.

What will the consequences of that be? It would simply be a speeding-up of the local government disorder that is already underway. Enclavisation would accelerate markedly – which is a fine result for most middle-class people, who have learned to read South Africa’s future well and position accordingly.

The third option is that the broader ANC/DA pact formally fractures. The DA and a handful of allies form governments where they can, while the Economic Freedom Fighters, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, and the ANC do the same. There would be appetite for that on both sides, among DA people who are worried that the party brand is being damaged by the limited reforms pursued in the Government of National Unity (GNU), and among ANC people who would prefer to reunite the party with its splinters. Should that occur at scale, the national GNU may also go.

That third option will offer the country scores of side-by-side comparisons of the DA and allies governing places on their own terms, of which Cape Town and Tshwane would be the most prominent – while the ANC and allies govern competing municipalities, such as Johannesburg, on their own terms.

The consequence of that may well be that net DA support lifts in the three or so years to the 2029 national elections while support for the broader ANC slips – and that this may happen to a degree where, come 2029, the DA (depending on who the ANC has picked as its next leader) stands strong enough to emerge as South Africa’s biggest party, although still far short of a majority.