People protest a water shortage in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2025.Ihsaan Haffejee/Reuters
In the neighbourhood WhatsApp groups of Johannesburg’s leafy streets, people call it “water roulette.”
It’s the random barrage of burst pipes and spectacular fountains of gushing water that can erupt at any time, leaving entire suburbs dry for weeks. It’s never knowing what will happen when you turn on your kitchen taps.
Johannesburg likes to see itself as a world-class city: the host of the latest G20 summit, the site of the World Cup championship match in 2010 and still the biggest city in Africa’s most industrialized country.
But the sad reality is that the city is eroding under pressure. The African National Congress, which has governed Johannesburg for almost all of the past 32 years, has failed to ensure the basic maintenance that any city needs, leaving its infrastructure decaying and prone to disaster.
The water crisis has broader political significance. The Johannesburg saga could trigger a South African electoral earthquake. Frustrated voters seem ready to deal a severe blow to the party that has dominated the country since the end of apartheid.
The Globe and Mail’s bureau in Johannesburg has endured some of the worst of the water shortages. Half a block from our home is one of the city’s most notorious pipes, the epicentre of innumerable battles, protests, petitions and botched repairs. The pipe on Dorset Road has burst dozens of times in recent years, leaving the street routinely without water for 24 to 48 hours, sometimes longer.
Residents sardonically call it the “Dorset Dam” – a reference to the huge pool of muddy water that accumulates around the pipe when city workers dig into it.
In early 2024, after months of failed repairs, the situation was so bad that local schools were left without water. Water sprayed dramatically from the pipe, wasting thousands of litres daily. The city sent in water tankers, forcing residents to queue up with buckets, which placated nobody.
Anger reached the boiling point, and the suburb organized a protest rally at the site of the broken pipe. People marched around the Dorset Dam with homemade protest signs. The city’s top officials were obliged to visit and solemnly pledged to find a permanent solution.
Two years later, the pipe continues to burst with alarming frequency. The senior officials don’t bother to visit any more.
The same crisis afflicts hundreds of other neighbourhoods in the city. Some go weeks or months with little or no water. Last year, the city officially recorded 13,331 leaks and 616 burst pipes. In total, about half of Johannesburg’s water is lost to leaks, burst pipes, illegal connections, decaying reservoirs and other wastage.
Protests reached such ferocity in one suburb that residents blocked roads with burning tires. Police responded with rubber bullets and stun grenades.
Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that local elections will be held across South Africa on Nov. 4. The water disaster is among the grievances that have sunk the ANC in the polls in Johannesburg and elsewhere. The long-dominant party is now facing “obliteration” in many towns and cities, political analyst Carol Paton wrote last week.
The ANC has recently been forced to rely on coalition partners to hang on to power in Johannesburg, but it remains the biggest party and has been part of the governing coalition for most of the past five years.
A survey in March found that the ANC’s support had fallen to 30 per cent in Johannesburg, while its longtime rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA), had climbed to 39 per cent. (The survey of 503 voters had a 4.4-per-cent margin of error.) If the polls are correct, the ANC is headed to its worst defeat in the democratic era.
Democratic Alliance mayoral candidate Helen Zille sits in a pool created by a water leak in Johannesburg, South Africa, March 28, 2026.Jacques Nelles/The Associated Press
The DA mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, has capitalized on the water crisis with a series of amusing campaign stunts in which she swims, snorkels and boats in the giant pools of water caused by chronically broken pipes.
Ms. Zille is now the frontrunner – although she is unlikely to win an outright majority, meaning she would still need to rely on coalition partners. But it would confirm the ANC’s continuing decline, a poor omen for its hopes in the next national election, in 2029.
The ANC had already tumbled to 40 per cent in the last national election. If it falls to 30 per cent in the heartland of the country’s most populous province, its grip on national power will weaken further.
In the meantime, the Johannesburg water emergency is showing no signs of ending. The Globe bureau will continue to rely on a complicated system of water storage in jugs and buckets as it prepares for the inevitable next breakdown.