Liberals oust ANC from control of SA's four largest cities

- and install first female mayor of Johannesburg

As a result of this year's local elections in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA)  controls, either alone or in conjunction with the socialist EFF, the four largest cities in South Africa. Riven by faction fighting and facing indictment of some of its historical leading figures over a bribes-for-arms-contracts scandal, the African National Congress (ANC) is in retreat. Nevertheless, the ANC national government is still pushing its Zimbabwe-style land seizure programme.

The Liberal International-affiliated DA is the result of a merger of several parties including the South African Liberal Party which throughout the apartheid-era had a racially-blind membership policy, while the ANC was still a black-only party. (The only other multiracial party was the Communist Party of South Africa.) Although still seen as a white-dominated organisation, the DA appointed the first black parliamentary party leader in South African history in Lindiwe Mazibuko in 2011.