CAPE TOWN, South Africa: South Africa’s African National Congress party was handed its worst election results ever Sunday in a new low point on its gradual decline in popularity as voters rebuked it for a failure to deliver basic services like water and electricity in towns and cities.

The once-dominant ANC — the party of Nelson Mandela — received 31 percent of the vote in Wednesday’s local government elections, according to official results Sunday.

The ANC remained the largest party by total share in an election involving hundreds of parties, but the Democratic Alliance that is its main opposition won 25 percent of votes.

That brought closer to reality the once-unthinkable notion that the ANC that led South Africa out of the white minority rule of apartheid and delivered freedom in 1994 under Mandela might one day not be its biggest party. It used to command 70 percent of the vote.

It’s a ‘very catastrophic outcome’ for the ANC

The ANC’s popularity has declined for more than a decade. It won 45 percent support in the last local elections in 2021, the first time it had dropped below 50 percent in any election. In 2024 it then lost its Parliamentary majority for the first time in a national election, which brought about a coalition national government and a seismic shift in South African politics with the end of the ANC’s 30-year dominance.

The ANC saw a steep drop of 15 percentage points from the last local elections and the loss of approximately one-third of its support from five years ago.

“If anyone has not heard what the people are saying in this election, then you are lost,” said ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula. “This has been a very catastrophic outcome for the ANC.”

He said the results called for the ANC “to be humble, to hear our people and respect them,” and to “earn again through service and not through slogans the trust people have lent to others.”

DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis said his party — which was around 20 percentage points behind the ANC in the 2024 national election — had now “taken a big step forward” in its aim to be South Africa’s biggest.

As the ANC declines, voters leave for several parties

But while the ANC’s popularity has dropped sharply, no single party has overtaken it as the vote has fragmented among many parties on a local and national scale.

Another seven major parties shared around 30 percent of the vote in these local elections, which had more than 500 parties contesting and many picking up small shares. The MK Party led by former South African President Jacob Zuma, who broke away from the ANC and was expelled by it, won the third-largest share of votes at around 10 percent.

Failed public services were the key issue

Voters across South Africa have long expressed frustration over failed public services that have left many cities and towns with regular water and electricity outages, broken roads and streetlights, and uncollected refuse.

Those local government failures, along with long-held anger over corruption scandals connected to the ANC, largely were the key issues in this election. The election was to choose local government councilors that run South Africa’s eight biggest cities as well as its 44 district and 205 local municipalities.

The ANC loses in major cities

The ANC lost its place as the largest party to the DA in the economic hub of Johannesburg, the capital of Pretoria, and the large Ekurhuleni municipality east of Johannesburg. The DA also retained its control of the second biggest city of Cape Town.

In Johannesburg, where failed services have been most under scrutiny, the white-led DA put forward its former leader, 75-year-old Helen Zille, as a candidate for mayor.

Her campaign included stunts like snorkeling in a water-filled trench in the middle of a city road in an attempt to highlight the failures.

There will now be complex coalition negotiations

But while the ANC’s decline was obvious in the biggest cities, almost all of them were left with hung councils because no party won a majority.

That meant a series of complex coalition agreements will be required to decide who governs and the ANC could be part of the governing coalitions.