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. “.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01)Local government elections 2026 are well underway. Millions of South Africans have already voted. With me is Sean McLaughlan, the co-founder of Norsira. Welcome, Sean.Sean McLaughlin (00:16)Thank you very much.Chris Steyn (00:18)A Blue Wave has struck America. What colour wave do you think will hit South Africa once the votes have been counted?Sean McLaughlin (00:29)That's a very good question Chris. Today looks like it could be a very good day for South Africa's Democratic Alliance. Now it's very, very early. I'm speaking to you ⁓ a little after 3pm South African time on Wednesday the 4th of November. ⁓Sean McLaughlin (00:51)2026, the day of the Local Government Election vote. Very, very early. ⁓ Lots of ifs, lots of buts. However, ⁓ the Democratic Alliance has had a very good campaign throughout ⁓ the entire campaign. Obviously the well-known case of Helen Zille’s mayoral candidacy in Johannesburg, ⁓ Cilliers Brink and Tshwane, other nodes across the country. ⁓ Historically, the DA has pulled very well…Sean McLaughlin (01:20)…in the between elections and that enthusiasm and that energy has tapered off a little bit and it may still do so and that may still come to pass and it may yet be more sort of prolonged disappointment for the Democrat Democratic Alliance. However, ⁓ there's a lot of signs thus far ⁓ that that party is having a pretty good day and it may well show up at the ballot box tomorrow. Sean McLaughlin (01:50)If you permit me I can share my screen and we can go through some of the scenarios that we are looking at at Norsira.Chris Steyn (01:56)Please.Sean McLaughlin (01:59)Yes, okay. ⁓ So this is our scenarios and again these are not predictions but, you know we think…Sean McLaughlin (02:11)…the result of the election may end up something like this: now to just show that the viewers know what they're looking at. We're assuming certain coalition assumptions and so on. So this is a scenario. This is assuming that, for example, an ANC-led broad coalition in a given council that the ANC councillors are able to cobble together something. Now it's always a possibility that the broader opposition can deny…Sean McLaughlin (02:41)…the largest party the governance of any specific council but this is something that we think…this is a possibility of something that we think the country may start to look like in a number of days time in a number of hours time potentially.So ANC majority, a possibility in around 88…Sean McLaughlin (03:04)councils, DA majority possibility, round about 12, IFP 12, and MK…Now, as I spoke to you yesterday, it's very difficult to say how MK are going to perform. ⁓ There's good reason to believe that they're going to fall quite a bit further than their 2024 vote due to logistical challenges among other things. So,Sean McLaughlin (03:34)Yeah, early indications are a pretty good day for the Democratic Alliance. Large suburban turn-out in the Gauteng metropolitan municipalities, in Johannesburg and in Tshwane, Pretoria. Let's see if that continues throughout the rest of the day today ⁓ and what the final result will be.Chris Steyn (04:01)What do you think of the IEC's preparedness thus far?Sean McLaughlin (04:07)Yeah, look, the IEC elections in South Africa, for the most part, have been signed off by international observers over years. They've, for the most part, been free and fair, with minor exceptions across the breadth and length of a very large, very diverse country that South Africa is. Sean McLaughlin (04:34)The one issue is how resourced the IEC is and it's struggled in recent years with resources, with funding, with staff ⁓ and that's certainly a challenge. Early indications are that the preparedness for this election has been pretty good ⁓ and we can expect this election…Sean McLaughlin (05:01)…to be free and fair ⁓ like other elections in South Africa have been.Chris Steyn (05:07)It's also been quite peaceful.Sean McLaughlin (05:11)Yes, and that's another thing which has to a certain extent taken me by surprise. I did expect more political violence leading into this election, during this election, and after again…it's still a bit over midway through the day. Let's see how the rest of the day goes. But I would have expected a lot more trouble, especially as a liberation movement loses power… Sean McLaughlin (05:38)…in a country like South Africa. It's a tense time. Now we may still see, we may see more trouble unfold as ANC loses power and 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?Sean McLaughlin (06:03)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. Chris Steyn (06:21)Any other scenarios that you would like to reiterate or share with us again today? Sean.Sean McLaughlin (06:29)Yeah, look, one case which I think is really interesting, which I didn't mention on your show yesterday, which is the case of uMngeni, which has been a pretty widely publicized case of a DA success story in KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. DA.'s only outright majority. Chris Pappas is a very colourful individual…Sean McLaughlin (06:56)…white Zulu-speaking mayor in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. It is a very interesting story. Now, our base case is that the DA holds a majority in this municipality which includes the towns of Hilton and Howick and the township of Mpophomeni. Now, our prime reasoning for that is because in 2021…Sean McLaughlin (07:25)…the DA won the council and off the back of 33 % at the previous national and provincial election. So that's on the national ballot. So 33 % in 2019. Off that it got 51 % in 2021. This time around, it's going off a higher base. It's going off 40.9 % in 2024, which leads us to believe…Sean McLaughlin (07:55)…that the DA will hold its outright majority in somewhere like uMngeni. And this is despite MK being on the ballot in 2024. And it leads us to believe that MK has cannibalised to a very great extent the ANC, and that trend stands to hold. Sean McLaughlin (08:17)So yeah, if I were Chris Papas, I would be pretty optimistic about the prospects of returning that…Sean McLaughlin (08:26)…that municipality. Then, you know, this is one thing, this is one thing we're tracking at Norsira, which we find so interesting about South Africa is the strength and the amount of its sort of second tier cities and large towns. You know, this was evident and very, very clear in the 2010 World Cup many, many years ago in South Africa, where you have eight big cities spread out across the country. It's a cluster in Gauteng, but…Sean McLaughlin (08:53)…geographically very spread out. Economic activity is pretty well spread out across the country, you know, for the most part. And that's something which I think South Africa has ⁓ economic strength going into the future. You may see the sort of amalgamation of a lot of these urban centres. Yeah. Chris Steyn (09:14)Norsira is going to allow us to share a link to interactive scenarios shown. What will our viewers see when they click on that link?Sean McLaughlin (09:25)Yes, so again we have run our model through scenarios for each of the 213 municipalities in the country and given possible outcomes what we think the case will be and this is what you will ⁓ see here…so you can hover over the interactive map ⁓ and it's eThekwini/Durban and…Sean McLaughlin (09:53)…that will come up here. Our base case we have yellow or governments of local unity. So you can then scroll down and see how many seats are in that council. So in Durban it's 223. So 112 needed for an outright majority. So, and then you can see in emboldened shaded colour…Sean McLaughlin (10:19)…the parties which are in political control. So possible scenario is ANC gets about 16%. So 36 seats, DA 28%, 63 seats, the Inkatha Freedom Party, 6%, 13 seats. And collectively, maybe with one or two others, that's enough to get over the line. yeah, and then there's what that would look like. And the linear... Sean McLaughlin (10:50)…trend of political performance of each of these parties over time, together with interactive dots on by-elections, how parties have performed in given by-elections and so on.And you can do this for each of the 213 municipalities within the country. We have a scenario for every single one, local and metropolitan, so not district municipalities.Sean McLaughlin (11:15)Yeah.Chris Steyn (11:16)Sean, not all our viewers or not many of our viewers will be familiar with Norsira. Please tell us about your work.Sean McLaughlin (11:26)Yes, okay. So Norsira is a for-profit business that I have co-founded with my technology lead who's also a business tribe member by the way, called Coenrad Van Deventer. And we have incorporated the business ⁓ and we're tracking geospatial economic and political activity within South Africa. Now we have ambitions to expand across many more countries.Sean McLaughlin (11:55)But we're starting with South Africa. We're tracking political data…Sean McLaughlin (12:02)…trends. We've taken a huge deep dive into the political landscape as you can see and layering that over with economic information, industries, the health of industries, property prices, both residential and commercial, wealth metrics and so on and kind of rolling it all together ⁓ and coming up with economic models on the entire country.So…Sean McLaughlin (12:26)…businesses can view the information and make decisions on that basis.So we see that South Africa is not flush with good political and economic data all brought together in one place. It's not unique to South Africa. Many countries' data is fragmented and requires an enormous amount of integrity and cleaning and so on. So we've taken a microscope…Sean McLaughlin (12:55)…to put this all together and an enormous amount of time and resources and energy has gone into building this tool.Chris Steyn (13:05)Thank you. Anything else you'd like to add?Sean McLaughlin (13:09)Well, perhaps we could maybe talk through one or two more scenarios.Chris Steyn (13:15)Absolutely.Sean McLaughlin (13:09)Okay, yeah, somewhere which I think very interesting is Emfuleni. So that's the municipality to the south of Johannesburg. So..Sean McLaughlin (13:35)Yeah, we have a best case as an ANC-led broad coalition similar to what it currently is. But, you know, one thing that's very interesting here is ⁓ you can see the linear trends on the graph ⁓ The DA in blue is slowly starting to look like it might meet the ANC at around 30%. And there was a famous bi-election here.Sean McLaughlin (14:03)May 2026 where the DA won this black township ward from the ANC. This was a landmark by-election for the DA and was widely publicised. This suggests the DA is going to have a very good election here in Emfuleni. It's a very, very populous, very economically significant place, includes Vanderbijlpark,Sean McLaughlin (14:29)…it includes Sharpville, a very historic place within South Africa. And one wonders, you know, what is going to happen in a municipality like this. ⁓ ANC stands to fall pretty far. There's nothing suggesting that the ANC's vote is going to recover. And in 2021, it was already at 40%. So it's not likely to get anything more than 40%. It's likely to go below 40%. And…Sean McLaughlin (14:58)…what is going to happen here? It's very unclear. There's a possibility of a government of local unity where the ANC and the DA come together. Again, this is one of many places where this may happen if the councillors on the ground can find each other. And yeah, that could be a very good outcome for somewhere like Emfuleni where you have the two largest parties working together at municipal level.Sean McLaughlin (15:27)That's the type of thing that we're tracking at Norsira.Chris Steyn (15:43)Thank you very much. Today is Local Government Elections 2026, and that was Sean McLaughlin, the co-founder of Norsira speaking to BizNews, I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Sean.Sean McLaughlin (16:00)Great, thank you..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.