Two elections, one question: Who really decides what your vote is worth?
As Americans prepare to vote in congressional elections and South Africans head to the polls in municipal elections, Paula Slier examines how electoral boundaries in the US and coalition deals in South Africa can shape political power, often leaving voters with less influence than they might expect.
In Johannesburg, a political party with just three seats in a 270-member council managed to secure the mayoralty twice.
In January 2023, Thapelo Amad of Al Jama-ah, a small party founded in 2007 to give South African Muslims a stronger political voice, became mayor of South Africa’s largest city. Three months later, he resigned and was replaced by a member of the same party, Kabelo Gwamanda. Between them, they occupied the mayor’s office for more than a year. Both were elected with the support of larger parties, including the African National Congress (ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). It was all perfectly legal.
On Wednesday, South Africans will elect new municipal councils across the country. In Johannesburg, and in other municipalities where no party wins an outright majority, the choice of mayor may once again depend on negotiations after the votes are counted. For residents dealing with water shortages, broken streetlights, deteriorating roads, and rubbish that isn’t collected, the concern isn’t only who becomes mayor. It’s whether anybody can be held responsible when things go wrong.
In Memphis, Tennessee, the Associated Press(AP) reported on two neighbours who have lived across the street from one another for a decade but will be voting in different congressional districts next week. Neither has moved house. The Republican-controlled Tennessee legislature has redrawn the electoral boundaries, placing the neighbours in constituencies stretching across different parts of the state.
Americans vote on Tuesday. South Africans vote in municipal elections the following day. The two elections have little in common on the surface.
Americans are deciding control of Congress, among other offices. South Africans are electing councillors responsible for local services. But the two elections raise a similar question. In America, political decisions made before an election can influence who gets elected. In South Africa, agreements reached after an election can determine who actually governs. And in both cases, there are limits to how much voters can influence those decisions.
Congressional districts are usually redrawn every ten years, following the census, to reflect population changes. This year, however, nine states are using new electoral maps following an unusual round of redistricting (as this process of redrawing congressional districts is known), driven by political advantage in some states and court decisions in others.
United States President Donald Trump encouraged Republican-controlled states to redraw their constituencies to improve the party’s chances of retaining control of the House of Representatives. Democrats in California responded with their own changes, intended to counter Republican gains elsewhere. According to the AP, roughly one in ten potential American voters will now find themselves in a different congressional district from the one they were in during the 2024 election.
In Memphis, the new boundaries divide a predominantly black city that previously formed the core of a single Democratic-held congressional district. Residents are now spread across three Republican-leaning districts, stretching into largely white, rural, and suburban communities. Civil rights organisations argue that the changes weaken black voters’ ability to elect candidates who represent their interests. Republicans defend the new maps as legitimate partisan politics. Democrats have also drawn boundaries to their advantage when given the opportunity.
Redistricting isn’t necessarily improper. Population changes require electoral boundaries to be reviewed, and politicians cannot guarantee election results simply by changing the maps. But there’s a difference between adjusting boundaries to reflect population changes and redrawing them specifically to improve one party’s chances. When politicians can influence the constituencies in which they compete, voters are making choices within boundaries that those seeking power have helped create.
South Africa’s difficulty is different, but the consequences can be just as frustrating for voters.
Since the November 2021 municipal elections, Johannesburg has gone through six mayoral terms held by four different people. Mpho Phalatse of the Democratic Alliance (DA) and Dada Morero of the ANC each returned for a second stint. Residents haven’t had another municipal election during that time, even as the political leadership of their city has repeatedly changed.
Of course, South Africans don’t vote directly for mayors. We elect councillors, who then choose a mayor. When no party wins an outright majority, political parties negotiate to decide who governs, either through a coalition or a minority arrangement. That’s how the system works, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. Coalitions can encourage compromise and reflect the fact that voters haven’t given one party complete control. But they can also produce arrangements that few voters could have anticipated when they cast their ballots.
In August, Reuters reported on Johannesburg’s worsening water crisis, including in an apartment block in Hillbrow where residents had been without running water for more than three years. Ageing infrastructure, chronic underinvestment, and financial problems have all contributed to the city’s difficulties. These problems cannot simply be blamed on coalition politics. Many developed over decades, long before the current political instability. But repeated changes in political leadership make it harder to establish who should take responsibility for fixing them.
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s 2023/24 Quality of Life survey found that only 24% of Johannesburg respondents were satisfied with local government. And it isn’t only Johannesburg. The Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), an independent South African think-tank established in 2010, recently published research into coalition and minority governments. It found that 80 of South Africa’s 213 directly elected municipal councils, almost 38%, had been without a single party holding an outright majority at some point between the 2021 elections and February 2026. These municipalities went through 175 different governing administrations during that period. As of February this year, 74 municipalities were governed through coalition or minority arrangements.
Not every coalition was unstable. Some survived for years. But the figures show how much of South Africa’s municipal politics now depends on agreements between parties rather than outright electoral victories. The ANC and DA have been partners in national government since 2024, yet MISTRA found no instance of the two parties serving together in a municipal governing coalition among the administrations it studied. So, parties that cooperate nationally may be unwilling to govern together locally. Smaller parties, meanwhile, can acquire influence far beyond their share of the vote because larger parties need their support.
Who answers?
If a Johannesburg resident has been without water for days, who should answer? The mayor is an obvious target, but responsibility may also lie with the larger coalition partners or the officials responsible for maintaining the infrastructure. Residents can, and do, blame political parties for poor services. But when several parties have governed the same municipality, responsibility for budgets, decisions and failures can be difficult to pin down. This makes it easier for politicians to blame their coalition partners, their predecessors or officials rather than account for their own decisions.
South Africa has recognised at least part of the problem. Proposed legislation would require formal municipal coalition agreements to be made public and introduce measures intended to improve stability. But Parliament has acknowledged that the legislation won’t be finalised before next week’s elections. So, voters are approaching another municipal election without those additional rules in place.
The comparison with America isn’t exact. Partisan redistricting raises concerns about fair representation. In South Africa, the concern is different. Coalition government may be necessary when no party wins a majority, but it can also make it harder for voters to know who is responsible for decisions made in their name.
People are already challenging both situations. Americans have taken electoral maps to court. South Africans have spent years demanding answers about municipal coalitions and the political deals that keep them in power. But in Memphis, voters cannot undo the new electoral boundaries simply by marking their ballots. And in Johannesburg, voters can punish parties for poor performance without knowing which coalition those parties might negotiate after the election.
The elections on Tuesday and Wednesday will produce winners and losers. There will be speeches about mandates, promises of change, and arguments over what the results mean. But in America, the boundaries will already have been drawn. In South Africa, negotiations over who governs may only be beginning. Choosing our representatives is only part of democracy. We also need to know who is making the decisions that determine what our votes are worth.
Paula Slier is an international journalist, war correspondent, and speaker whose work focuses on geopolitics, modern conflict, and information warfare.
