The ANC's loss of the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) municipality is one of the intrigues of the 2016 elections. The main city in the metro and province, Port Elizabeth, has historically been associated with the ANC. That historical association was reaffirmed by post-apartheid electoral trends, at least until the 2009 national elections. Few observers and analysts, if any at all, would have predicted an ANC loss in 2016. Even when the ANC started losing favour in 2009, none thought that would harden into a defeat. Albeit hardly anticipated, there were signals that the ANC could lose NMB. Thus, the 2016 loss was not a surprise. The ANC actually did not deserve to win. Its conduct both as a party and municipal government, did not endear it to the electorate. The attempts at improving its conduct and performance were ambivalent, at best, and artificial, at worst. It just would not make a decisive turn towards reforms. The cause of the ele