Voting Decisions and Racialized Fluidity in South Africa's Metropolitan Municipalities.

This article examines whether racial identities determine voting behavior in post-apartheid South Africa, based on a representative survey of 3,905 registered voters across five metropolitan municipalities. The findings reveal a pattern of "racialized fluidity," where racial identity remains significantly correlated with voting choices—Black African voters predominantly support the African National Congress (ANC), while Coloured, Indian, and especially white voters tend to favor the Democratic Alliance (DA)—yet about half of voters change their voting decisions or abstain across elections. Notably, younger Black African voters show increasing rates of abstention, posing challenges for the ANC's future support. Reasons for voting and abstention reflect a mix of historical loyalties, material benefits, performance evaluations, and political disillusionment, with explicit racial motivations rarely cited by respondents. The concept of racialized fluidity is proposed as a framework to understand the coexistence of enduring racial voting patterns and individual electoral volatility in South Africa and potentially other African contexts.