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Eight weeks before the vote, Corné Mulder promised Alec Hogg a surprise. His Freedom Front Plus delivered its best result since 1994, but Mulder was more interested in what came next. He set out a three-party plan to run Gauteng's metros without the ANC, said it could be wrapped up within a week if a few personality clashes were settled, and drew a hard line: if the DA chose the ANC in Johannesburg, the FF Plus was out everywhere. He then went further, laying out a little-discussed constitutional route that could take South Africans back to the polls well before 2029. Mulder also weighed in on Helen Zille's soft words for Cyril Ramaphosa, ActionSA's township breakthrough, a disappointing night for Gayton McKenzie, and whether the party's Afrikaans name still caps its growth.

In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Sean McLaughlin, the co-founder of Norsira, takes viewers on a road trip to cities and towns in all the provinces across the country to view the coalition options in a big range of cities and towns in the wake of last week’s Local Government Elections outcome. He takes viewers through the political party options in each one. “From top to bottom of the country, you're going to see a very wide variety of deals. Some may be pretty formal coalitions where they formalise things in writing. They take a proportional number of seats in the executive and share the seats accordingly. Some may have some sort of loose arrangements where they agree to work together, but only in the case of passing budgets and maybe electing the mayor and key executive decisions. The junior partner perhaps stays in opposition. That's one option. Maybe they agree to service delivery milestones or metrics or whatever the case may be…we're going to see a very broad array of deals.” * Norsira is an independent information provider on SA municipalities.

Coalition talks had barely started, and the two people at the centre of the Joburg question were already telling different stories. Herman Mashaba told Alec Hogg he had phoned DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis with an offer: he and Helen Zille would both step back, the DA would lead Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni, and ActionSA would keep Tshwane. He said his relationship with Zille could not be repaired. Zille told Alec the bitterness came from one side only, and explained why she found his condition absurd. Economist Iraj Abedian gave his verdict on an ANC down to about 31%, including the two decisions he still credited it for. Former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi told Chris Steyn what a minister had told him about the Bosasa evidence, and what he said he could do about it. Reuters closed the show with Wall Street's Monday rebound and the one chip stock that didn't join it.

The DA set out to win Johannesburg, and it did: 91 seats, up from 71, and first place in South Africa's economic heartland. But it fell 45 seats short of a majority, and the two parties that could get Helen Zille into the mayor's office both came with strings attached. ActionSA's Herman Mashaba had made her candidacy a deal-breaker; the ANC had spent the campaign on the receiving end of her attacks. Zille told Alec Hogg why she found Mashaba's condition absurd, why she was keeping her hands off the talks, and why she read the ANC's response to its worst local result as a sign that South Africa's democracy was maturing. She also looked back three decades to a hostile press conference at the Carlton Centre, explained the whiteboard triangle she once drew in the Drakensberg, and set out the DA's next target: becoming the biggest party in the country.

While Namibia drilled its way towards an oil boom, South Africa produced court cases. Economist Iraj Abedian told Alec Hogg that the research needed to change that was finished years ago. He revealed the plan he drew up as a ministerial adviser to turn the Northern Cape into a petrochemical hub, and warned why gas under the Orange Basin may not wait for South Africa to make up its mind. He also took on the ANC's slide to around 31%, whether its leaders would ever vote for an early election, the personal feud stalling Joburg's coalition, and the single habit he said linked the ANC's decline to Donald Trump's midterm hiding.