Ndahamba phantsi kwentaba elide yaye njengesiqhelo waba iimbono olukhulu embindini ebumnyameni. Streetlamps, izindlu kunye neevenkile kakuhle zagcwala ebumnyameni kwindlela emva indlu yam phakathi cinema esi sixeko kunye kwisikhululo sikaloliwe. this grounded theory study focused on understanding how south africa’s two numerically--dominant political parties, the african national congress (anc) and democratic alliance (da), used micro--blogging site, twitter, as part of their electioneering arsenal in the 2016 municipal elections to promote party--political digital issue ownership within an urban context. using each party’s 2016 election manifesto and corpus of tweets, this three--phased study found that while both the anc and da used twitter as a digital political communication platform to communicate their election campaigns, the da notably leveraged the social networking site for intense ‘focused’ messaging of its negative campaign against the anc while simultaneously promoting positive electoral messages around its own ‘core’ issues and metro mayoral candidates. ‘battleground’ metros were identified by the da in ekurhuleni, johannesburg, tshwane and nelson mandela bay, leading to an emphasised urban campaign here to either activate the party’s own support base and/ or to suppress the anc’s turnout in these highly--contested areas. additionally, it was found that both the anc and da used twitter for explicit and implicit partypolitical issue ownership claiming in the 2016 municipal elections. lastly, this study also culminated in the proposal of three but interconnected different elements of a conceptual framework for digital political communication that political parties could use to promote digital party--political issue ownership within a pronounced urban electioneering setting. these elements – ‘coordinating and managing how an election is tweeted’, 'focus' messaging the election’ and ‘audience--segmenting as a message--tailoring strategy’ – when used in unison can help political parties communicate better and ultimately more effectively in a highly mediatised technological media landscape.