Treat South Africa’s eight metros as one unit and the 2024 election result is startling: the DA got 31.0% of the aggregate vote in the metros, just ahead of the ANC on 30.9%. Outside the metros, the ANC is still ahead, with 47.1% in non-metro South Africa, but even there it falls short of a majority. Marius Roodt, deputy editor of The Common Sense, walks Gabriel Makin through the numbers around why the metros matter: they have 40% of the people, but 53% of formal jobs, about 60% of GDP, and 68% of personal income tax assessed. Marius also talks about what this could all mean for the November elections and why he calls the ANC “the conservative party of South Africa”.