DA on (Cilliers) Brink of Majority in Tshwane

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is within touching distance of securing a majority in Tshwane in the next local government elections.

This is according to latest polling* done by the Social Research Foundation (SRF), in conjunction with The Common Sense.

The polling, conducted in late February and early March, looked at the political state of play nationally and in three of South Africa’s biggest metros – Johannesburg, Tshwane, and eThekwini.

People were asked who they would vote for if an election were held today.

Forty-five percent of those polled in Tshwane said they would vote for the DA, with 42% saying they would vote for the African National Congress (ANC).

No other party recorded support above the margin of error of 4%.

The result shows that the DA and its mayoral candidate, Cilliers Brink, are within touching distance of winning a majority in the capital. However, it is more likely that the DA will need the support of other smaller parties to secure the mayoral chain in the city, and it is still possible that an ANC-led coalition could pip the DA and its allies at the post.

*The Social Research Foundation Q1 2026 Market Survey was commissioned by the Social Research Foundation supported by The Common Sense and conducted by Victory Research using a nationally representative telephonic CATI survey of registered voters (N=2 222), with metro samples upsized to over 500 respondents each in Johannesburg (n=503), Tshwane (n=510), and eThekwini (n=503). Fieldwork was conducted between 16 February 2026 and 6 March 2026 using a single-frame random digit dialling sampling design that draws from all possible South African mobile numbers, ensuring equal probability of selection and near-universal coverage given SIM penetration above 250%, more than 90% adult phone ownership, and mobile network coverage of 99.8% of the population. Respondents were screened to include registered voters only, and turnout modelling assigned each respondent a probability of voting based on likelihood indicators, with the primary model assuming turnout of 56.0%. Data were weighted to ensure the national sample reflects the demographic profile of the registered voter population across language, age, race, gender, location (urban/rural), education, and income, while metro samples were weighted to the demographic composition of voters in each metro. Results are reported at a 95% confidence level with a design effect (DEFF) of 1.762, producing margins of error of 2.1% nationally and 4.4% for each metro sample.