Tshwane has experienced a substantial political realignment over the past decade, with both the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) losing considerable electoral support.

In the 2016 local government elections, the DA secured 43% of the vote, narrowly ahead of the ANC on 41%.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) now projects that the DA will secure 31% in 2026, a decline of 12 percentage points.

The ANC's decline has been even more severe, with its projected support falling to just 21%, down 20 percentage points from 2016.

The most striking development has been the emergence of ActionSA, which did not exist in 2016.

The CSIR projects that ActionSA will secure 23% of the vote, placing it ahead of the ANC and just eight percentage points behind the DA.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are projected to decline from 12% in 2016 to 6%, while the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) is projected to increase from 2% to 7%.

The data is set out in the chart below.

The projections suggest that Tshwane has undergone a different form of political fragmentation from that seen in Johannesburg.

Rather than the ANC alone suffering substantial losses, both major parties have lost ground as newer and smaller parties have expanded their support.

The result is a metropolitan political landscape in which three parties are projected to secure more than 20% of the vote, leaving coalition negotiations central to the formation of the next municipal government.