On 3 August 2016, the Johannesburg electorate and opposition parties delivered a dual blow to the African National Congress (ANC) in the City of Johannesburg. Firstly, large numbers of traditional ANC voters either switched to one of the opposition parties, or voters in the ANC's core support base abstained. The voters responded to two decades of uneven local governance and service delivery, and judged the former ANC monolith in terms of the national narratives of the time – corruption, compromised accountability and deficient national leadership. Secondly, ideologically divergent opposition parties coalesced against the ANC. As a result, the ANC ceded control of Johannesburg to an opposition party coalition led by the Democratic Alliance (DA). The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was a key power broker and saw its role in the coalition in terms of a pact against the ANC. The article poses the question of whether these oppos