The City of Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest city and a prime economic centre. It is the biggest metropolitan municipality (and thus, the biggest municipality overall) in the country by population size, with an estimated to be 6.1 million population. Johannesburg is the biggest contributor to Gauteng’s GDP, with a value of R 959 billion in 2021, accounting for 44.15% of the province’s GDP. Thus, these factors make this municipality a strategic municipality for political parties to govern. This has partially influenced the heightened political competition around Johannesburg. As a result, the city has been governed by coalitions since the 2016 local government elections, with the African National Congress (ANC) obtaining 44.5% of the votes (121 seats).
General Information
The 2021 local government election results yielded a hung municipality. This means that no political party obtained more than 50(+1)% of the votes. For a party to govern the municipal council, it requires a minimum of 136 seats. The highest-ranked party (ANC) received 91 seats (45 seats short to govern). As a result, the municipality has to be governed via a coalition of more than 1 party. The key here, is that in order to form a coalition to govern the municipality, the parties to the coalition must have a collective number of seats equivalent to 136 or more.
