The chairperson of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), Mosotho Moepya, yesterday declared the 2026 local government elections free and fair, and announced that the African National Congress received 30.9% of the vote.

“It is then my singular honour to hereby declare the 2026 municipal elections concluded as free and fair,” Moepya said.

He said the Elections Satisfaction Survey 2026 found 90% of respondents saw "the procedures as free and 91% as fair”.

“The national turnout for these elections is 52%, representing an increase of 6.1 percentage points from the 45.9% turnout recorded in the 2021 local government elections,” Moepya said, adding that 29.2 million voters were registered and that “approximately 14.9 million South Africans cast their ballots in these elections”.

The Democratic Alliance received 24.6% of the vote, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party 9.6%, the Economic Freedom Fighters 6.3%, and ActionSA 5.7%, Moepya said.

Moepya said a revote would be organised, on a date to be determined, in the Jabulani Community Hall voting district in Ward 3 of the Siyancuma Municipality (Douglas, Northern Cape), after “activists for a particular political party stormed the station and destroyed ballot papers”. The IEC has also approached the Electoral Court and registered a criminal case with the South African Police Service, Moepya said.

Reports on the incident suggest that a local party may have been involved.

“In celebrating this achievement, we must not create the impression that everything went perfectly,” Moepya said.