Elections 2026 | Nine-month-old community movement topples ANC in Northern Cape council

Rise Tsantsabane Communities (RTC) has toppled the African National Congress (ANC) in the Tsantsabane council, winning a majority in the Northern Cape municipality only nine months after the local movement was registered.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC)’s results dashboard showed RTC in control of the municipality after 100% of the votes were counted.

RTC secured seven of the council’s 13 seats, giving it the exact majority required to govern without entering a coalition.

The ANC, which controlled Tsantsabane with seven seats after the 2021 municipal elections, was reduced to three seats.

The Democratic Alliance (DA), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Patriotic Alliance (PA) each secured one seat.

RTC’s victory hands its founder and mayoral candidate, Michael “Gogo” Mabilo, control of a municipality that includes Postmasburg and surrounding mining communities.

It also represents a dramatic electoral debut for a party registered only on February 18.

RTC contested the election as a local movement built around anger over poor municipal services, unemployment and the perceived failure of surrounding mining operations to improve residents’ lives.

New party sweeps wards

The party won all seven ward seats, shutting the ANC and established opposition parties out of direct ward representation.

Its victory means the ANC will return to the council only through three proportional-representation seats. The DA, EFF and PA will also rely on their proportional vote for representation.

The scale of RTC’s ward performance gave it control even though it did not need to win more than 50% of the party vote.

Earlier results, when 24 of the municipality’s 28 voting districts had reported, placed RTC on 46.7% of the proportional-representation vote.

At that stage, it had received 4,644 PR votes, compared with the ANC’s 2,765. The DA followed with 942, the PA with 608 and the EFF with 586.

The completed result confirmed that the remaining voting districts did not overturn RTC’s majority.

The IEC’s national party table recorded RTC as controlling one municipality. It also showed the party with nine seats across the councils in which its representation was counted.

ANC loses its majority

The outcome reverses the 2021 result, when the ANC won seven of the 13 council seats and governed with an outright majority.

Save Tsantsabane Coalition and the DA each held two seats after that election, while the EFF also secured two.

RTC entered the campaign promising permanent jobs, cleaner municipal government and improved water, sanitation and road services.

At the party’s manifesto launch in October, Mabilo said its formation arose from residents’ frustration with deteriorating services.

“The formation is about the suffering and poor service delivery,” he said, pointing to potholes and the area’s approximately 40 mines.

The result now turns that protest message into responsibility for governing.

RTC must elect a mayor, speaker and other office bearers when the newly constituted council holds its first meeting.

Its seven-seat majority means Mabilo’s party can elect those office bearers on its own, provided all its councillors vote together.

The ANC, meanwhile, faces opposition after losing a municipality it previously controlled outright.

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