The stage has been set for ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa at the University of Johannesburg Soweto Campus where the party is expected to hold its "thank you" event following the local government elections.
According to a media alert, the purpose of the event is to thank members of staff, volunteers and communities for exercising their democratic right by participating in the 2021 local government elections.
"The ANC never takes the support it receives from the people for granted and appreciates efforts taken by those who went out to affirm our manifesto anchored on ’Building Better Communities Together’,“ the media alert read.
Ramaphosa along with the national officials are set to use this event to also interact with members of the media.
The media are looking forward to hearing the outcomes of the party's National Working Committee (NWC) meeting held over the weekend, especially around coalitions.
Coalitions would have been at the forefront of discussions for all parties, especially the ANC following the announcement of results of the local government elections last Thursday night.
Although the ANC may be the majority party, it did not reach the 50% mark. These local government elections were characterised by a massive decline in support for the ANC.
Now, in order to lead the critical metros, the ANC will have to join forces with other parties to reach that majority 50 plus 1 marker.
In the build-up to this year's elections, the big political parties had their eyes fixed on the country's eight metropolitan municipalities: Buffalo City, Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Mangaung, Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane.
Of the eight metros, the ANC only managed to score an outright victory in Buffalo City and Mangaung.
The DA secured an outright majority in the City of Cape Town.
In Ekurhuleni, the ANC dropped to 38.19%. Most of its support appears to have been poached by new kid on the block ActionSA, which managed to get 15 seats in the metro.
The City of Johannesburg was hung as both the ANC and DA failed to get a majority. The biggest winner in Johannesburg was ActionSA, with the party securing 44 seats.
In the City of Tshwane, the ANC received 35% of the votes, while the DA had 32%. ActionSA had a decent showing, bagging 8.64% of the votes.
The EFF scored 10.69% with 23 seats.
The DA and ANC were neck and neck in Nelson Mandela Bay and will have to wrestle over the metro.
The DA attained 39.92%, getting 48 seats. The ANC attained 42 seats with 39.43% of the vote.
The ANC lost its majority in eThekwini, with only 42.02% of the votes and 96 seats.
The DA lost three seats and now has 58 seats and 25.62% of the votes.
The EFF scored 24 seats up from eight in 2016. It has 10.48% of the vote share and is now the third biggest party eThekwini.
The IFP made some inroads with 7.13%, gaining 16 seats, an increase from 10 and 4.2% in 2016.
Political Bureau