No Electricity, No Vote: Service Chaos Tests South Africa’s ANC

Thick cables snaked along footpaths in a township outside South Africa’s wealthiest city, Johannesburg, where 180 households have relied on illegal electricity connections for more than 20 years. Angry about the authorities’ failure to get them properly connected to the grid, residents have resolved to turn their backs on their ANC-led municipality at the November 4 local elections, a test for the once-majority party that has been bleeding support for more than two decades.

“We have made a collective decision: no electricity, no vote,” said community leader Lesiba Rankapole, 59. For other communities across the country, complaints feeding disillusionment with African National Congress (ANC) municipalities include failures to provide water or collect garbage, as well as mismanagement and corruption. “We know it is illegal, but we had no choice because we cannot live without electricity,” said Rankapole of the wires that take power from another area of Katlehong, a sprawling semi-urban area on the edge of Johannesburg.

“Our children cannot progress without electricity.” It is “obvious we are not going to vote, especially for the ANC”, said another resident, Enock Majola, 57, who pointed out illegal dumping sites. “I was born ANC, but today I do not want anyone to tell me about the ANC because I am suffering,” he said. Sliding support At the heart of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, the ANC — the party of jailed liberation hero-turned-president Nelson Mandela — took nearly 70 percent of the national vote in 2004.

It fell below 50 percent for the first time at the last municipal elections in 2021, when it won 46 percent of votes and retained control of nearly half the municipalities. At the 2024 national vote, it managed just over 40 percent and was forced to accept a coalition government. The party’s weakness has emboldened spin-offs such as the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) led by former president Jacob Zuma that is contesting local elections for the first time this year.

Elsewhere in Katlehong, Meshack Twala was digging to reach a blocked pipe at a house surrounded by sewage. “How do we go and vote when our entire street has been experiencing persistent sewage problems?” he said, conceding, though, that if he did make it to a voting station, he would plump for the ANC. “Changing to other parties would not feel right,” the 58-year-old said.

Municipal elections generally attract low turnout, which “hurts the ANC”, said political analyst Sethulego Matebesi. But the vote will give parties an “idea of where their support base is” as they look towards the 2029 national poll, he said. Matebesi predicted no party would win an outright majority and the country would be “full swing” into coalition-building and hung municipalities.

Johannesburg: the big prize Of the 257 councils up for grabs, the fight for control is particularly intense in Johannesburg, an economic dynamo of more than 4.8 million people and the face of Africa’s most industrialised nation. South Africa’s stark inequalities are laid bare in the Alexandra township from where skyscrapers of the Sandton business district — reputed to be the richest square mile on the continent — are visible.

Heaps of rubbish, potholes and sewage flows lined the roads. “The ANC has been governing for years, but we have not seen any changes in Alexandra,” said maintenance worker Patrick Saohatse, 45. He said he would give his vote to the liberal Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in the ruling coalition after the ANC. Already in charge of the country’s second city Cape Town, the DA has pushed hard on ANC service delivery failures and mismanagement in a campaign that started more than a year ago.

“Another five years of corruption and collapsing infrastructure will push our city beyond recovery,” said mayoral candidate, 75-year-old Helen Zille, at a recent rally. Less than two weeks before polling day, the ANC was yet to choose its candidate amid lacklustre campaigning. “If you look at the situation in and around Johannesburg, there are reasons for people not to be happy,” the party’s head of elections, Mdumiseni Ntuli, told AFP.

“We have made mistakes and accepted our shortcomings, but ANC remains a better option for people,” he said, urging voters to cast their ballots. Running for a second chance to be Johannesburg mayor is the leader of the centre-right Action SA, Herman Mashaba, 67. “Our refuse collection is irregular; our streets have no lights… I keep asking myself, what on earth is happening?” he said to AFP.