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With millions of South Africans having already voted in today’s Local Government Elections 2026 in the wake of a “Blue Wave” striking the United States after its Midterm Elections, Chris Steyn asks Norsira’s Sean McLaughlin what colour wave he thinks might hit the country once the votes have been counted. “Today looks like it could be a very good day for South Africa's Democratic Alliance.” He shares an interactive link https://norsira-website.vercel.app/feature-analysis with viewers to access probable outcomes in 213 municipalities. Meanwhile, he expresses surprise that there has not been more political violence. “I would have expected a lot more trouble, especially as a liberation movement loses power in a country like South Africa. It's a tense time. We may still see more trouble unfold as the ANC loses power - and it is losing power almost by the day in many places in the country. What may happen if the ANC loses control of many, many councils across KwaZulu-Natal? There's competition for resources, there's the possibility of exposure of corruption cases within these municipalities. That may lead to greater political violence and just general unrest within certain nodes of the country. “

On the morning South Africans voted, William Saunderson-Meyer argued that the count would deliver the verdict, but the coalition talks would decide whether anything changes. The Jaundiced Eye columnist told Alec Hogg why so many ANC voters see their party's failings clearly and back it anyway, why a lower turnout may favour the DA, and why the ANC had plastered Cyril Ramaphosa's face across every metro instead of naming its mayoral candidates. He said the DA had been outmanoeuvred in the GNU, that only the election calendar had spared John Steenhuisen a disciplinary inquiry, and that Cilliers Brink may be within reach of Tshwane. He also warned against reading too much into Donald Trump's midterm drubbing, and asked whether South African voters, like a long-beaten donkey, still had the spirit to kick back.

South Africans vote today. Norsira co-founder Sean McLaughlin has run every metro and 213 local councils through a scenario model and tells Chris Steyn only about 45 look safe, with MK's first nationwide local test the great unknown - he expects it down in rural KwaZulu-Natal and in the metros. Legal scholar Dr Martin van Staden says the real problem is how much power sits in Pretoria, and that elites with skin in the status quo fear change. The DA's Cilliers Brink tells Alec Hogg the Tshwane polls understate him. Plus Nelson Mandela Bay's R28bn hole, and Apple dragging the Dow.

On the eve of the local elections, Dr Martin van Staden argued that South Africa's real problem was not who ran its towns, but how much power sat in Pretoria. Freshly appointed to build AfriForum's new Institute for Federalism, the legal scholar told Alec Hogg that communities were already doing the state's job, from policing to diplomacy, and that Citrusdal's farmers could not afford to wait five years for a better vote after Washington's Agoa decision. He accused the DA, IFP and Freedom Front Plus of believing in federalism only "on a sunny day", made the uncomfortable case that failing municipalities should feel the consequences of how they vote, and answered the charge that community federalism is ethnic separatism by another name.

On the eve of the vote, Norsira co-founder Sean McLaughlin told BizNews his firm had run every metro and local council through its scenario model, and found fewer than a quarter of them safe. He walked through how Durban could end up with a DA mayor backed by the ANC and IFP, why Joburg's DA surge might still land in opposition, and where MK could carve deep into the ANC's base in southern Mpumalanga. He also flagged the quieter contests, from Makhanda's collapse to Beaufort West's lesson for Gayton McKenzie, and the IFP's run of by-election wins that made it his dark horse.