Tshwane election results: Which collation can keep the water flowing and lights on?

The Tshwane election results are final, and they have produced a council that no single party, or even any obvious pair of parties, can easily control.

The DA emerged as the biggest party in the capital.

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But for the city’s residents, the bigger question is whether the next coalition can keep the water flowing, the lights on and the rates bills under control.

The DA won 74 of the council’s 214 seats, according to the final seat allocation on Sunday, 8 November.

ActionSA won 48, and the ANC 44. A party or coalition needs 108 seats to govern.

The DA received 34.38% of the vote, followed by ActionSA on 22.08% and the ANC on 20.20%.

The full Tshwane council seats picture

The rest of the council is made up of:

• Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus): 17 seats (7.63%)
• EFF: 13 seats (5.77%)
• MK Party: 4 seats (1.96%)
• SACP: 3 seats (1.19%)
• several smaller parties, including the PA (0.65%).

The results mark a major shift since 2021, when the ANC was the largest party with 75 seats and the DA had 69.

ActionSA has more than doubled its seats from 19, while the EFF has dropped from 23.

Who could govern after the Tshwane election results?

Based purely on the seat numbers:

• The current governing partners, ActionSA, the ANC and the EFF, now hold 105 seats, three short of a majority
• The DA and ActionSA together would hold 122 seats
• The DA and the ANC together would hold 118 seats
• The DA and FF Plus would hold 91 seats, well short

The IEC declared the results on Sunday, 8 November.

The council must now hold its first meeting within 14 days – by 22 November – where it will elect a speaker and a mayor.

What the Tshwane election results mean for your bills

Residents already know what they will pay for the rest of this financial year.

The council approved its 2026/27 tariff increases, which took effect on 1 July 2026:

• Water: up 10%
• Electricity: up 8.8%
• Property rates: up 5%
• Sanitation: up 5%
• Refuse removal: up 4.1%

The City of Tshwane says property rates pay for services that do not generate their own income, such as roads, clinics, libraries and emergency services.

The new council will draw up the next budget, which will decide tariffs from July 2027.

The city’s finances

The new council will inherit a city that its outgoing administration says is in better financial shape.

According to Mayor Nasiphi Moya’s end-of-term report, Tshwane cut its Eskom debt from about R6.6 billion in October 2024 to R4.73 billion by March 2026.

Cash reserves grew from R835 million to about R1.8 billion.

Not everyone accepts that picture.

The FF Plus argued that the budget relied on an unrealistic revenue collection rate of 90%, saying the Auditor-General had found the real rate to be below 85%.

Water and electricity remain the test

Moya has said the city is not facing a water crisis, but is battling losses from ageing infrastructure and leaks. Hammanskraal and Bronkhorstspruit remain pressure points.

Many of the city’s transformers are also decades old.

That means whoever takes over will inherit the same daily frustrations residents live with: water interruptions, power outages and potholes.

Coalition instability has made these problems harder to fix in the past.

When councils deadlock, budgets, appointments and repair projects can stall.