South Africa has four months left until the local government election on 4 November 2026, and if the last local elections are anything to go by, we may be in for lower voter turnouts in South Africa’s metros.

In 2021, all the metros had a voter turnout below 50%, which means fewer than half of the people who registered to vote actually cast a vote. People were less apathetic in the 2016 elections, where the lowest voter turnout was in Buffalo City, where 56% of the registered voters cast their votes. Nelson Mandela Bay and Cape Town have had the highest voter turnouts of the metros in the past three elections.

The Human Sciences Research Council survey released in March indicates that voter turnout will be low this year unless interventions are made to encourage people to vote.

The province with the highest voter turnout overall in 2021 was the Northern Cape at 53.3%, followed by the Western Cape at 48.8% and KwaZulu-Natal at 48.2%.