Poll Puts DA Ahead in Two Key Metro Service Battles

Polling data released this week points to a shift in how South Africa’s largest metros may be governed after 4 November, with an eNCA/MarkData survey placing the Democratic Alliance ahead of the ANC in Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay. For voters watching whether municipal services actually function, the numbers suggest the contest over who runs local government, and how well it runs, is tightening with just over three weeks to election day.

The findings align with the DA’s own internal polling, which the party says now positions it as the largest party in five metros. In eThekwini and Mangaung, it reports being within the margin of error of taking the lead. The DA has framed the results around delivery: the claim that South Africans are increasingly judging parties by what they run well rather than what they promise.

That framing puts the operational record at the centre of the party’s closing argument. In its statement responding to the poll, the DA pointed to a track record of delivery, a plan to get the basics right, and what it describes as a proven ability to lead governments that work. The services it named are the everyday infrastructure of municipal life: reliable water, electricity and basic services for poorer households, safer streets and cleaner communities, and conditions that allow entrepreneurs to build businesses and create jobs.

By contrast, the party set its record against the ANC’s trajectory, describing declining ANC support as a verdict on decades of broken promises, corruption and municipal collapse. It argued that the election is about more than rejecting failure, claiming that only the DA is big enough to defeat the ANC and that only it has the national footprint, experience and track record needed to lead a credible alternative government.

The poll itself is a snapshot, and the DA has been careful not to treat it as a result. Polls, the party said, only set out the potential. Races in all metros remain exceptionally close, which is why it is pressing the one variable it can still influence: turnout. The call to supporters is direct. Turning potential into actual DA-led governments in municipalities across the country depends on every supporter voting on 4 November. In the party’s words, the only way to stop coalition chaos and get local government working is to vote DA on that day.

The emphasis on coalition chaos reflects a practical concern about post-election governance. Hung councils in major metros have repeatedly produced unstable arrangements, and the DA’s argument is that a clear outcome, delivered by turnout rather than polling momentum, is what allows a municipal administration to function and deliver. Momentum, the party suggests, only matters if it converts into mandates strong enough to govern.

Behind the electoral arithmetic sits a broader claim about accountability. The DA argues that South Africans do not have to accept decline as their destiny, and that what is broken can be fixed: communities made safer, cleaner and better run, and a country that works for everyone. Its appeal is addressed to identifiable constituencies of service delivery, from the poor family that needs reliable water and electricity to the entrepreneur who wants to build a business, and to every South African who wants safer streets, cleaner communities and a better future for their children.

Whether that appeal holds in the voting booth is the open question the poll cannot answer. What it does establish, three weeks out, is a competitive position in metros where service delivery failures have been most visible. The DA’s message to its supporters is that growing trust must now be matched by votes: do not just hope for change, but vote for change on 4 November.