KwaMhlanga is hung: ANC wins all 33 wards but ends one seat short

Thembisile Hani (KwaMhlanga, Kwaggafontein, Moloto and surrounding areas in Mpumalanga) has a hung council, even though the ANC won every one of its 33 wards. With all 154 voting districts counted, the ANC has 33 of the 66 seats, exactly half and one short of the 34 needed to govern alone (ESP; The People's Register).

The ANC took 44.8% of the ward vote, down from 60.6% in 2021 (ESP). In 2021 it won 40 of 64 seats (Counted).

Who won how many seats?

Sources: ESP and The People's Register, both using IEC data; Counted shows the same seat totals.

Why did winning every ward not give the ANC a majority?

Half of the council is elected in wards and half by proportional representation (PR). PR seats are used to top parties up until their total matches their share of the vote, and a party keeps every ward it wins even if that is more than its share (Reported: how council seats are calculated). The ANC's 33 ward wins already exceed what its vote share alone would give it, so it gets no PR seats, and all 33 PR seats go to ten other parties (ESP; The People's Register).

Most wards were won with under half the vote. Only seven of the 33 wards gave the ANC more than 50%, with its biggest win in Ward 7 at 71.4% (ESP ward results).

How did the vote change since 2021?

Sources: 2026 ward vote from ESP; seat history from Counted. The council grew from 64 seats in 2021 to 66 this year (Counted).

Turnout was about 49.5% of 169,016 registered voters, according to the IEC figure quoted by ESP.

What would it take to reach 34 seats?

This is seat arithmetic, not a prediction. No coalition had been announced in the sources used here.

Because the other ten parties have 33 seats between them, no majority is possible without the ANC. The ANC, in turn, needs just one more councillor. A council budget needs the support of a majority of all councillors (Constitution, section 160; The People's Register seat calculator).

When will Thembisile Hani get a mayor?

The results are still provisional. The IEC will announce the final 2026 local election results at 18:00 today, Sunday 8 November, at its results centre in Midrand (eNCA; EWN).

After the result is declared, the municipal manager must call the first council meeting within 14 days, where councillors elect a speaker and mayor (Reported: what happens in a hung council).

How to check your ward result

Use the IEC's results dashboard and search for Thembisile Hani (MP315). Ward-by-ward results are also on ESP and The People's Register. Only the IEC's declaration is final.