The results are in for the top five

South Africa's municipal elections were held on 1November 2021, to elect councils for all district, metropolitan and local municipalities in each of the country's nine provinces. With more than 23 000 voting stations that opened across the country on Monday, the 2021 local government elections have , however, not been without incident.

More than 26 million South Africans were registered to vote in the elections, the majority of which were between the ages of 30 and 39 years. With an approximate 67% of the nationwide votes tallied, several results from local municipalities have been made available. The result for Msukaligwa Local Municipality, as published, marked the African National Congress as the party on top, with 43 167 valid ballots, or 59.79 % of valid votes. The Economic Freedom Fighters came in as runner up with 12 494 valid ballots (17.31 %). The Democratic Alliance placed third, with 7 950 valid ballots (11.01 %). The Freedom Front Plus placed fourth with 4 828 valid ballots (6.69 %) with Independent placing fifth with 1 253 (1.74 %). The remainder is filled by other parties, with a detailed layout being available on the IEC website.

Ermelo saw a marked turnout of voters, and grandstanding of the various political parties involved, as the day was declared a public holiday by President Ramaphosa. The full available results for Gert Sibande District Municipality’s local municipalities will be available in Tuesday’s publication.