LISTEN | Elections were 'free and fair', and nearly a third of SA's councils have no outright winner

A whopping 66 municipalities will have coalition governments at the helm after South Africans did not give any party outright majority victories in them.

Listen to the official results: 

This was revealed by the Electoral Commission of South Africa on Thursday where it declared the final local government elections results.

The hung council make up just over 30% of the country's 213 municipalities.

IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini said the election, in which 12.3 million people voted, was "free and fair".

The ANC achieved a majority in 161 of the 213 municipalities, while the DA achieved a majority in 13, and the IFP achieving 10.

There was no outright winner in 66 municipalities. This filtered to the metros, where only three of the eight had clear winners where political parties achieved over 50% of the vote.

The DA retained control in the City of Cape Town with 58.22%, down from the 66.7% it got in the 2016 local government election.

The ANC won with outright majority in two municipalities - Mangaung and Buffalo City - where it got 50.63% and 59.3% respectively.

This means the ANC is the biggest loser after failing to get outright majority in the metros it was governing, including Johannesburg, eThekwini and Ekurhuleni where it got 33.60%, 42.02% and 38.18% respectively.

Although the party has received majority of the votes in these municipalities, including Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, it will need the help of other political parties to form governments.

Declaring the results, Mashinini said the IEC was able to deliver a free and fair election despite a number of challenges it faced including the novel Covid-19 pandemic, a short timeframe of just 42 days and power interruptions among others.

"Despite these challenges, we achieved our innovative objectives of taking our electoral system to the next level of automation through the introduction of the voter management device, which has put paid to the possibility that there could ever be allegations double voting," he said.

"The fact that we are here today, having delivered these elections is an achievement we should all be proud of as a nation. Our thriving, vibrant and maturing democracy has indeed withstood the test thrown at it."

Mashini congratulated the 10,461 councillors who have been elected to serve.

"We urge them to go out and make the lives of our people better. Go out and ensure that our communities develop and live in peace. Go out and, through your honest an ethical work, guarantee the future of our children," Mashini said.

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