2021 South African municipal elections

1 November 2021

All councillors for all 8 metropolitan municipalities
All councillors for all 205 local municipalities
40% of councillors for all 44 district municipalities

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Cyril Ramaphosa	John Steenhuisen	Julius Malema
Party	ANC	DA	EFF
Popular vote	45.59%	21.62%	10.32%
Swing	8.32%	5.28%	2.13%
Councillors	4,545	1,414	980
Councillors ±	618	298	219
Municipalities	176	35	2
Municipalities ±	41	8	2

	Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party

Leader	Velenkosini Hlabisa	Pieter Groenewald	Herman Mashaba
Party	IFP	VF+	ActionSA
Popular vote	5.65%	2.34%	2.34%
Swing	1.4%	1.57%	2.34
Councillors	544	220	90
Councillors ±	112	153	90
Municipalities	29	0	0
Municipalities ±	16

Politics of South Africa
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The 2021 South African Municipal Elections were held on 1 November 2021, to elect councils for all district, metropolitan and local municipalities in each of the country's nine provinces. It was the 6th municipal election cycle held in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994, with the previous municipal elections having been held in 2016. On 21 April 2021, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the elections to be held on Wednesday, 27 October 2021. It had been recommend by Dikgang Moseneke to delay the municipal elections until 2022. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) requested the Constitutional Court to support the date postponement. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supported the date postponement while the Democratic Alliance (DA) was against the postponement of the date. The Constitutional Court dismissed the application to postpone the date until 2022, ruling that they had to take place between 27 October and 1 November. On 9 September 2021, the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced that the elections would be held on 1 November.