Ekurhuleni (incorporating SA’s favourite joke locale, Benoni) has been called the “land of Cortinas and Carnival City”. That may change to the “land where small parties go to die”. Citydex's PAUL BERKOWITZ bemoans the apparent demise a land of many political party colours.

As the numbers still come in, a message is beginning to emerge. It’s not exactly loud and clear yet, it could still shift slightly as final results return, but it is a message the ANC needs to heed carefully. By a politically intoxicated STEPHEN GROOTES.

By Thursday evening results were still being tallied, but already there was a clearer picture emerging of how the local government elections had gone. Most votes had been counted in much of the country, and reactions were warm in Midvaal, silent if you're the ANC and naturally varied everywhere else. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

Wednesday was a momentous day in the history of the Republic of Somaliland. The country, if we can call it that, celebrated the 20th anniversary of its declaration of independence from Somalia. It’s shown it is possible to rise above chaos and build a lasting legacy. By SIMON ALLISON.

Years ago astronomers and Nasa scientists painstakingly put thousands of individual photographs of the Moon together like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle to produce a final detailed image of Earth’s satellite. Tallying up the votes from Wednesday’s local government election is not dissimilar – and it’s only once all the pieces are in their right places that we will get a picture of the mind of South Africa. By STEPHEN GROOTES.

Business as usual will be the order of the day in Mangaung municipality where major shifts in power are unlikely. The only noticeable thing will be the municipality turning into a metro from a secondary city which will give its administrators more responsibility and power, a bigger budget and exclusive executive and legislative powers. By Citydex's THATO MOLEWA & PAUL BERKOWITZ.

Zuma tells people not to waste their votes on small parties. IFP and ANC candidates attacked just after Zuma praises peaceful elections. Patricia de Lille grilled about her numerous party allegiances. Zille's last stand in PE. International reaction. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

On Tuesday evening it was announced that four journalists held in Libya – Manu Brabo, Jim Foley, Clare Gillis, and an unnamed fourth – would be released, possibly as early as Wednesday. We don't know if the fourth journalist is Anton Hammerl, but it seems unlikely. And in South Africa, the lack of information and action is still difficult to believe. Either the SA government doesn't know or doesn't really care. Or both. By THERESA MALLINSON.

Only the brave and foolhardy predict election results. Or those backroom wonks who are suddenly so important to political parties and radio stations during elections. And yes, by using the phrase “wonks” we realise we are not earning any favours from those we really should be drinking with right now. So we apologise. But, just in case they don’t forgive us, we’d better make our own predictions. Just so you have something to point at and laugh about later. By the ever-foolhardy STEPHEN GROOTES.

By now it should be glaringly obvious to national government that the electorate is outraged at the poor performance of local governments. The fact that this appears to have surprised President Jacob Zuma is indisputable evidence that his regime has lost touch with local concerns – and that, in turn, constitutes a tectonic crack in the notion of democracy itself. By KHADIJA PATEL.

As the Mail & Guardian goes to the Constitutional Court to obtain access to the Khampepe-Moseneke report on the Zimbabwean 2002 elections, we must pause, for a second, to take stock of just how far down the road away from true democracy we've strayed. The picture ain't pretty. By MANDY DE WAAL.

Erik Prince, the 41-year-old former Navy Seal billionaire who years ago created the controversial private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has started a new venture in the desert outside Abu Dhabi. With millions in cash from the emirates, Prince is building an army for the oil-soaked sheikhs. In the process, he’s hiring South Africans who know their way around a dirty war. By RICHARD POPLAK.

ANC's toilet strife increases while the Cape Times has rather a lot to say about the DA. Gwede Mantashe criticises the media's election coverage while Zille warns against blind loyalty to any political party and Patricia de Lille wonders which role Tony Ehrenreich actually wants. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

With hours to go to the 2011 local government elections, the tenure of Amos Masondo as Mayor of Johannesburg is thankfully drawing to a close. A master of denial, amply evidenced by the billing debacle, the beleaguered city boss was telling journalists what a great job he had done with Joburg while petitioning for votes for the ANC. He also said he’d be on hand to assist the new mayor if need be. What will we do without you, Amos? By MANDY DE WAAL.

Of course, major contests in the 2011 local government election will go to the wire in Cape Town and Johannesburg, but the main event will be what happens in Port Elizabeth – especially with the metropolitan area named after ANC icon, Nelson Mandela. Citydex's THATO MOLEWA analyses the swings and roundabouts.

The DA’s at the SABC’s throat, citing bias after the public broadcaster gave the ruling party live coverage for the ANC’s final Siyanqoba rally on Sunday, days before voters go to the polls. The SABC, of course, says the DA’s talking nonsense. The law says electoral coverage should be equitable, but is vague enough to make deciding what is equitable fairly malleable. And yes, we’ve heard this all before. By MANDY DE WAAL

Every period defined by the actions of a head of state marks that national leader with some characteristic, some soubriquet that catches hold of the public imagination and builds what finally becomes that leader’s place-name in history. Osama bin Laden’s death seems to be that definitive instant for US President Barack Obama. By J BROOKS SPECTOR.

The metropolitan area of Tshwane has been redrawn and, incorporating two former separate municipalities, now forms the world’s third largest “city”. Citydex’s PAUL BERKOWITZ analyses the vast mishmash of new boundaries to gaze into the future of what this gigantic complex of wards may look like post-Wednesday.

It's been a full weekend. The ANC's Siyanqoba rally, bias allegations thrown at the SABC and the SAPS, Zille speeches in Khayelitsha and Mpumalanga, a verbal spat between Julius Malema and Mangosuthu Buthelezi, defections, a DA councillor busted for calling traffic police "faggots" on his Facebook page... ah, elections. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

The ANC likes to party. And why not? When you have the resources to take over the FNB Stadium you may have something to celebrate. And it’s best to have the party now, because you may not feel like partying later. So if you’re the ANC, it’s best to party like it’s 1994. By STEPHEN GROOTES, who manages not once in his entire report to use the word “toilet”, not even once.

Claims of huge corruption in DA-run Midvaal and Stellenbosch while the ANC, having finished with Christianity, now says you'll annoy the ancestors if you vote against it. Cope didn't actually announce a mayoral candidate yesterday and the FF+ welcomes DA and ID councillors into its ranks. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

At the Daily Maverick we try to keep a certain level of decorum. Pop into our office sometime and check. It may be trestle tables, but they’re classy. We may not eat with silverware, but we try to keep it clean. So we apologise in advance for the rest of this piece. So, if you object to reading about toilets, lavatories or holy thrones, please stop reading now. But if you are interested in matters scatologically political, then please, dive right in. By, who else, STEPHEN GROOTES.

Yet another flaw appears in SA’s electoral system – have the same candidate campaign in numerous wards thereby increasing the odds of  a party winning at least one PR seat. The IEC says it’s okay. We’re not so sure, writes PAUL BERKOWITZ.

The ANC has allegedly sent a treasury report lambasting its governance back for "repackaging" while Zuma has denied Malema's land-grab plans. The DA mayor of Cape Town Dan Plato is happy with how he did. The FF+ announces strife in the Cape Town municipality and Cope announced its rather colourful mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. Electoral toilet news is now in blitz form at the bottom. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.

As an end in itself, it's undoubtedly a good thing that Uganda's infamous “Kill the gays” bill was not voted on before the end of the current parliamentary session on Wednesday afternoon. But the larger battle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender – and straight – human rights to be upheld in Uganda will get nowhere until activists look at the bigger picture. By THERESA MALLINSON.

The campaign trail is a strange place. It goes from lavatorial through funny to just plain odd very quickly. And sometimes there's some good debate. Which is why STEPHEN GROOTES can’t get enough of it.

As expected, the veteran right-wing US politician and former Speaker of the House finally announced that he doesn't want to miss the party either. But the many political mistakes he made and his morally questionable past will be difficult to forget. By J BROOKS SPECTOR.

The first thing one learns when writing about Arnold Schwarzenegger is how difficult it is to spell his last name. No matter how many times one does it, one has to fall back on spell check to get it right. The second thing one learns is that his marriage is apparently ending. Daily Maverick has it on solid authority that he’ll be separating from Maria Shriver, his wife of 25 years, and a famous lady in her own right. We weigh in on the split and posit why it may have happened. By RICHARD POPLAK.

Anyone who has ever played the diplomacy/strategy boardgames knows how facile and unpredictable alliances are – especially forced alliances. It’s often the old saw of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” that decides. However, when PAUL BERKOWITZ applied the economics principle of Shapley values to several of our more competitive areas in next week’s local government elections, some interesting possibilities emerged.

Toilets continue to remain the election's focal point with Midvaal now being thrown into the ring as well. The Premier of Gauteng has defended the ANC's governance record in the province and the party has released "The real story of Cape Town" (you can just imagine what is in that morsel of a document). The DA denies it is behind pamphlets quoting Trevor Manuel telling people not to vote for the ANC. The PAC and Sasco finally join the fray and the IFP loses in the Constitutional Court. By SIMON WILLIAMSON.