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Former DA leader Tony Leon tells Alec Hogg the ANC is electorally on life support after this week's local elections, and that thousands of councillors now out of work could make the fight over its next leader very ugly. Solly Moeng says Herman Mashaba must drop the personal angle against Helen Zille and put Johannesburg first, while ActionSA surprises in Tshwane. In a Ricardo portfolio update, Alec asks whether Palantir, with revenue up 96% to more than $2 billion in a quarter, can be worth what the market asks. Plus the Nasdaq's worst day in 19 months.

One day after the Local Government Elections in South Africa, in this interview with Chris Steyn - just after four o'clock and with 43% of the results in - political commentator Solly Moeng says Action SA leader Herman Mashaba and his party leadership need to listen to calls from voters not to go into coalitions with the ANC, but to work with the DA. “They have to find a way to respond to the people of South Africa who are saying we are punishing the ANC…his intentions are good, but I think he needs to take away this personal anger that he has against specifically Zille…they cannot sacrifice the will of the people because of personal feelings…” Moeng also comments on the performance of MKP, the FF, the PA, the EFF and other parties. “At least the people now have spoken. They've said to the ANC, we've trusted you long enough. We're slowly, slowly, slowly pulling the rug from under your feet. And that's the way to do it, slowly, slowly…so that it's not like an overnight thing and then they start blaming, I don't know what else, Jan van Riebeek.” As for US President Donald Trump’s party’s Midterm defeat, Moeng cautions: “...it's not time to celebrate Trump losing. Okay, we can do it. We private people can do it. But I think the people who are running foreign policy must spend more time lobbying…we need to work with America…we need foreign policy that is run by people who are not running around with emotions and old-era, Soviet era ideas about international relations.”

Four companies BizNews owns reported in the same week, so Alec Hogg went back to his own valuations to see whether they still held. Palantir nearly doubled its revenue and its chief executive declared his intent to take "the entire market", yet one number nagged at Alec. Uber delivered a fifth straight quarter of 20%-plus bookings growth while Wall Street priced it as if its best days were behind it. Back home, Lesaka and Exemplar told a different story, and slowing growth forced a harder look at what the Ricardo portfolio was willing to pay. Some numbers went up, some came down, and the pattern said a lot about where growth was coming from.

The ballots were barely a quarter counted when Tony Leon sat down with Alec Hogg, and he had already seen enough. The former DA leader, who helped negotiate the GNU two years ago, explained why a battered ANC still had cards to play, but none it could play for free. He laid out the formula he believed the DA should turn back on the ANC in Joburg, warned what a walkout from the GNU could mean for the rand and bonds, and described a party that had shed votes in its own fortresses. He also reflected on 1994, when his party was stuck "in the cracks", and on how far it had climbed since.

As the count got under way, three guests disagreed on what should follow it. William Saunderson-Meyer told Alec Hogg the vote was a verdict on the ANC, but the coalitions formed afterwards would be the real pointer to 2029, and he wondered how many of the party's true believers were left. Norsira's Sean McLaughlin pointed Chris Steyn to Emfuleni, where the DA had taken a township ward from the ANC in a May by-election and where he expected the ANC to slip further. He said the two largest parties governing together there could be a very good outcome. Cilliers Brink was not convinced that would work in Tshwane. He told Alec he wasn't sure voters wanted the DA at the table with the networks he blamed for the city's decline, and described the pushback he expected the moment reform came up. Reuters closed the show with Wall Street's reaction to the US midterms.