Cape Town votes on Wednesday 4 November: what you are choosing and how to take part

On Wednesday 4 November 2026 South Africa holds its local government elections. In Cape Town the vote decides who sits on the city council, and the council in turn decides the municipal budget, the rates and tariffs households pay, and how the city looks after water, sewers, refuse collection, electricity networks in its supply area, roads and land. It is a different vote from the national one in 2024: nobody is choosing a president, a premier or members of Parliament this time.

The election date was proclaimed on 7 August 2026, and the voters' roll, the official list of people allowed to vote, closed at that point. Anyone who is not already registered cannot register for this election. Anyone who is registered can still check their details, and in Cape Town that is worth doing, because the ward boundaries changed and the council grew from 231 seats to 235.

Election coverage uses a lot of shorthand. These are the terms that matter for this vote, in the order you are likely to meet them.

What the city does, and what it does not

A council decides about things you meet every week: the property rates bill, the price of water and refuse removal, whether a pothole is repaired, where new housing is built. It does not run the police, which is a national service (the SAPS), and it does not run public schools or hospitals, which belong to the province. When a candidate promises something in those areas, a fair question is what the council can do about it with its own budget and powers, for example street lighting, municipal law enforcement and land for housing.

Half of the 235 seats go to ward councillors (118, one per ward) and the other half to party-list councillors (117). You get one paper for each. Because the two halves are counted differently, the easiest way to see what they do is to look at the last election in Cape Town, in 2021, using the Electoral Commission's own results.

The Democratic Alliance won 83 of the 116 wards, which is 72% of the ward seats, with 57.8% of the ward votes. A ward goes to whoever gets the most votes in it, so a party that is the biggest in most wards takes most of them, even if it is far short of 100% of the vote. The ANC won 33 wards on 18.5% of the ward vote, and every other party won none.

The party-list seats then even this out. The 115 list seats are shared according to each party's share of the party vote, but a party's ward wins are counted against it first, so a party that did very well in wards receives fewer list seats. The DA took 52 list seats (45% of them), the ANC 10, the EFF 10, GOOD 9, and smaller parties the rest. Added together, the DA ended with 135 of 231 seats, 58.4%, almost exactly its 58.3% share of the votes. That evening-out is the purpose of the party ballot.

The headline from 2021 was that the DA kept Cape Town with 58% of the vote. That figure is a share of the people who voted, and fewer than half of the registered voters did. The IEC lists 1,973,708 registered voters in Cape Town in 2021, and about 920,000 of them cast a ward ballot, a turnout of roughly 47%. Measured against everyone on the roll, the largest group was the people who stayed away.

Read this way, the DA's 58% of votes was the support of about 27% of everyone registered, and the ANC's 18.5% was the support of about 8.5%. That is not a criticism of either result, because every election works like this, but it shows why turnout is the biggest number in the room. A change of a few percentage points in who turns up can move more seats than a change in how people who do turn up vote.

The longer trend explains why the political conversation in Cape Town has changed. In 2011 the two big parties between them took 94% of the party vote. By 2021 they took 77%, and at least 15 other parties held seats between them. The DA fell back from its peak in 2016, the ANC kept losing ground, and parties such as the EFF, GOOD and the Cape Coloured Congress won a combined 26 list seats in a council where none of them had a ward.

The number of seats on a municipal council is set by the province, based on how many voters are registered. For 2026 a Western Cape notice sets Cape Town at 235 councillors, up from 231, which gives 118 wards and 117 party-list seats. To win control on its own, a party needs more than half, which is 118 seats. In 2021 the DA had 135.

The City has confirmed that ward boundaries were redrawn, with changes to wards including 23, 107 and 113, and a newly created Ward 117 because population growth pushed one area over the legal maximum size for a ward. If you moved house, or live near a ward edge, check your ward and your station instead of assuming they are unchanged.

The table shows that each councillor represents slightly more voters than before. The notice used about 2.1 million registered voters (2,100,405 in March 2024), and dividing that by 235 gives roughly 8,900 voters per seat, against about 8,500 in 2021. By the same arithmetic the average ward holds about 17,800 registered voters.

The IEC says 55 political parties and 10 independent candidates are contesting Cape Town. Which names you see depends on your ward, so the certified candidate list for your own ward is the one that counts. The parties below have named a mayoral candidate in public. Remember that this person is not on your ballot paper: the councillors elected on 4 November choose the mayor.

How to read a promise

Party manifestos are the place to compare plans, and each party publishes its own. Three questions help with any of them. First, is this something the city council controls, such as rates, water, refuse and land, or does it belong to the police, the province or national government? Second, does the promise carry a date and a figure, such as "build 5,000 homes by 2029", or is it a general wish? Third, how would it be paid for, and who would qualify? A promise that answers all three can be checked after the election. One that answers none of them is a hope.

In a local election you can only vote at the station where you are registered, and with the ward changes it is worth confirming that before election week. There are three ways to do it: send your 13-digit ID number by SMS to 32810, call the IEC on 0800 11 8000, or use the voter pages and station finder on the IEC website at elections.org.za.

On the day, take your green barcoded ID book, your smart ID card or a valid temporary identity certificate. At the station an official will check your name on the roll and give you two papers. Mark the ward paper for one candidate and the party paper for one party, fold them and put each in its own box. If you spoil a paper by mistake, ask for a replacement before you put it in the box.

If you cannot vote on 4 November

The IEC opened applications for special votes on 21 September, and they close on Monday 12 October at 17:00. Three groups can apply: people who are too ill or disabled to get to a station (they receive a home visit), people who can travel but cannot vote at their station on the day, and people who will be outside their voting district on 4 November, including those working in essential services and the media. Approved station-based special votes are cast on 2 and 3 November.

You can apply on the IEC website, or by SMS to 32249 (R1 per SMS, for a special vote at a voting station only), or by taking a Special Vote Application form to your local IEC office. Forms must be handed in by hand, because the IEC does not accept them by email or fax, and someone else may deliver yours for you.

Counting starts when stations close, and the IEC declares the final results. The new councillors then meet, elect a speaker to chair meetings and elect the executive mayor. If one party holds at least 118 of the 235 seats it can do this alone. If none does, the parties have to agree on who works with whom, and a coalition deal usually sets out which party gets the mayoralty and how the budget will be passed.

That is a real possibility to watch for. In 2021 the DA won an outright majority, but its share of the party vote has fallen since 2016 and 55 parties are on the Cape Town ballot this time. This article does not predict a result, and the 2021 numbers above describe the past election, not the coming one. What they do show is how much depends on who turns up: with 1.05 million registered voters not casting a ward vote in 2021, the people who stay at home decide more than any single party's supporters.