Zille ahead in Joburg votes, but ANC could still block her from mayor's office

Johannesburg has not yet delivered a final result. But the projections are already telling a brutal story: the DA is on course to win the city in votes, and the ANC is on course to try to take it back in coalition talks.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is projecting a commanding DA lead in South Africa's commercial capital, almost as many votes as the ANC and ActionSA combined. But projections are not power, and on these numbers, Helen Zille would still fall short of a majority.

The DA is projected to lead the election race in South Africa's commercial capital, with more support than that of the African National Congress and ActionSA, which are projected to come second and third in the city, respectively.

Modelling from the CSIR projects that the DA will win 33.7% of the vote, with the ANC on 19.6% and ActionSA on 16.7%. The CSIR runs a prediction model that is accurate in using just a handful of district results to model the overall election result. It has projected Johannesburg's results with 27.3% of voting districts declared.

Only two other parties were projected to get more than 5% of the vote: the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on 7.1% and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) on 5.3%.

These are projections, not final results. With just over a quarter of voting districts declared, the numbers could still shift. But the CSIR model has a track record of calling trends early, and the trend in Johannesburg is unmistakable.

The ANC, which once governed the city with an outright majority, is projected to struggle to retain the support of even one in five voters, while the DA is projected to emerge as the clear electoral frontrunner.

Even on these projections, however, the DA is by some distance the biggest party in Johannesburg, but the party could still struggle to secure a workable coalition should the ANC choose to work with other parties to prevent Helen Zille from taking over the city's mayoralty.

That is the danger hidden inside the projections. A projected win is not a projected government.

On the CSIR numbers, the DA on a projected 33.7% would be 16 points short of a majority.

The ANC on a projected 19.6% plus ActionSA on a projected 16.7% plus the EFF on a projected 7.1% plus MKP on a projected 5.3% would be 48.7%, within touching distance of a majority with one or two small parties.

In other words, the projections point to a hung council where the losers could still outvote the winner.

If the final results follow the CSIR trend, the ANC will face a choice: accept the projected verdict of voters and seek a stable governing arrangement with the DA, or attempt to assemble another coalition of smaller parties to keep Zille out of office.

Africa Daily earlier reported that ANC sources said the party would rather work with ActionSA than with the DA following numerous complications in their relationship.

The political landscape means that smaller parties could once again determine who governs Johannesburg, potentially allowing the ANC to retain considerable influence despite its poor projected electoral showing.