Helen Zille and Herman Mashaba have an opportunity to help stabilise Gauteng’s biggest cities, but their differences could stand in the way, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

The political obstacle to stable governments in Gauteng’s three metropolitan municipalities is not just the arithmetic. It is Helen Zille and Herman Mashaba.

Two of the most recognisable figures to emerge from the 4 November local government elections now have an opportunity to shape the future of South Africa’s economic heartland. Whether they can put their differences aside may determine what happens to the votes cast by millions of Gauteng residents.

Zille led the Democratic Alliance’s campaign to take Johannesburg from the ANC. Mashaba’s ActionSA made substantial gains in Tshwane and Ekurhuleni and remains a central coalition player in Johannesburg. In Tshwane, it has become the second largest party.

Both have ambitions, both have strong personalities, and neither has been shy about criticising the other.

Yet the election has presented them with a proposition that is difficult to ignore. The DA is the biggest party in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni. Together with ActionSA, the Freedom Front Plus and the Inkatha Freedom Party, it has a route to governing all three.

The numbers offer an opportunity for stability. They do not guarantee it.

The cities’ published budgets for 2026/27 amount to R226.5-billion: Johannesburg accounts for R97.1-billion, Ekurhuleni R70.9-billion and Tshwane R58.5-billion. Their ability to maintain infrastructure, provide reliable services and attract investment has consequences far beyond their municipal boundaries.

The arithmetic is particularly straightforward in Tshwane. The DA has 74 seats, ActionSA 48 and the Freedom Front Plus 17. Together they have 139 seats in a council of 214, where 108 constitute an outright majority. The DA and ActionSA alone have 122, so the Freedom Front Plus would provide an additional cushion.

In Ekurhuleni, the DA’s 66 seats and ActionSA’s 40 add up to 106. That is seven short of the 113 needed for an outright majority. The Freedom Front Plus, with 11 seats, takes the combination to 117.

In Johannesburg, the latest reported allocation gives the DA 91 seats, the ANC 63 and ActionSA 43. The DA and ActionSA would have 134 in the 270 seat council, two short of an outright majority. The IFP’s seven seats or the Freedom Front Plus’s five would take them over that threshold.

The IFP has worked with the DA in previous coalition administrations and won four Johannesburg wards in this election.

This is the opportunity in front of Zille and Mashaba. It is also where their personal differences become a political problem.

Their relationship has been fraught since Mashaba’s time as DA mayor of Johannesburg. He has accused Zille of undermining coalition stability, while she has criticised his record in office and his relationship with the EFF, which held the balance of power during his mayoralty.

Those disagreements have become part of the political identities of both leaders.

ActionSA reportedly wants the DA to consider Mashaba for the Johannesburg mayoralty instead of Zille. Its national chairperson, Michael Beaumont, has said the party remains open to a coalition with the DA, including one involving Zille, but that its concerns about her role in previous Johannesburg coalitions would have to be addressed.

Reports also indicate that ActionSA wants to retain the Tshwane mayoralty, held by Nasiphi Moya. The precise conditions remain part of the negotiations.

Mashaba also has another route. ActionSA has held talks with the ANC about continuing their partnership in Gauteng’s metros. An agreement involving the EFF and MK could allow it to retain Tshwane and secure significant influence in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni.

The numbers explain why that alternative cannot be dismissed.

In Tshwane, the ANC’s 44 seats, ActionSA’s 48, the EFF’s 13 and MK’s four add up to 109, just above the 108 seat threshold. In Ekurhuleni, the same parties would have 128 seats, comfortably above the 113 needed.

On the latest reported Johannesburg allocation, they would have 138 seats, above the 136 needed for an outright majority.

These are possible combinations, not agreed coalitions. But they demonstrate that Mashaba has options and that Zille’s candidacy is not secured by the DA’s first place finish.

The largest party does not automatically get the mayoralty. Councillors elect the mayor, and parties that can assemble sufficient support can choose another candidate.

The consequences of getting these arrangements wrong are substantial. Gauteng’s metros oversee vast procurement budgets, electricity distribution, water systems, roads, housing and basic services. They also carry the burden of years of financial mismanagement, deteriorating infrastructure and allegations of corruption.

Ekurhuleni, in particular, will face pressure to confront allegations of wrongdoing and restore confidence in municipal institutions. The Madlanga Commission, which is examining allegations of criminal influence and interference in the criminal justice system, has reinforced the urgency of protecting public institutions.

A new municipal administration must be able to review suspicious contracts, commission forensic investigations, protect whistleblowers and refer evidence to the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority, the bodies responsible for investigating serious crime and bringing prosecutions.

A coalition that spends its first year fighting over mayoral positions and committee appointments would betray that urgency. The cities cannot afford another revolving door of mayors and municipal managers.

The voters have done their part. They have put the DA ahead in all three metros and given ActionSA enough seats to shape what happens next.

The DA’s time to prove itself will begin ticking the moment it takes office. If Zille becomes Johannesburg mayor, she will have until 2029 to demonstrate that the party can turn around the country’s largest city and make it the centrepiece of its campaign to win Gauteng and the presidency.

But that opportunity begins with an agreement capable of surviving beyond the election of a mayor.

Zille and Mashaba must decide whether their differences matter more than the cities they want to govern. Gauteng’s voters cannot afford to wait while they settle the argument.

Winning Johannesburg could give the DA a platform to challenge for Gauteng in 2029, but it must convince voters that it offers more than an alternative to ANC failure, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

The Democratic Alliance has never had a better opportunity to break through in Gauteng. The ANC is struggling to defend its record in Johannesburg, where years of unstable coalitions and deteriorating services have left residents desperate for a government that can make the city work again.

But the local government elections on 4 November are a test of whether the DA can turn the ANC’s decline into a credible campaign for power in Gauteng in 2029.

The DA’s ambition to take over Gauteng in 2029 is far from fanciful because the ANC’s provincial vote share has fallen from 53.6% in 2014 to 50.2% in 2019 and just 34.8% in 2024. That leaves the ANC with 28 of the legislature’s 80 seats and dependent on coalition partners to govern. The DA holds 22 seats on 27.4% of the vote.

The DA has made Helen Zille the face of its campaign to take Johannesburg, the country’s economic centre. If she wins, she could use the mayoralty to demonstrate that the party can govern a major city outside the Western Cape and build momentum for a campaign to take over Gauteng in 2029, possibly with Solly Msimanga as its candidate for premier.

If she fails, the DA will have to confront the uncomfortable question of what comes after Zille?

The party has a new federal leader in Geordin Hill-Lewis, but he remains mayor of Cape Town, a city where the DA has a strong electoral base. Msimanga is a senior party figure with experience in Gauteng, while Siviwe Gwarube has built a profile through her work in parliament and as education minister. Yet the DA has not demonstrated that any of them can command the national recognition and broad electoral appeal required to lead a credible challenge for power in 2029.

Hill-Lewis has chosen to remain in Cape Town rather than join the national executive. Governing Cape Town gives him an opportunity to demonstrate administrative competence. But it also leaves him politically anchored in the DA’s strongest province while his party participates in the government of national unity without its national leader in Cabinet.

The DA wants to be a dominant force in the national government by 2029. Its leader must therefore do more than manage a successful city. He must become a national political figure, capable of taking the fight to President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC on corruption, economic growth, jobs and the future of the country.

The polling suggests that Johannesburg is within reach. An eNCA-MarkData survey published in October put the DA on 35%, ahead of the ANC on 21.8%. The MK Party polled 12.5%, the EFF 11.9% and ActionSA 10.3%. A separate survey by the Social Research Foundation and The Common Sense put the DA on 36% and the ANC on 22%.

The numbers make the DA the clear frontrunner to emerge as the largest party in Johannesburg. They do not guarantee the mayoralty. With 270 council seats, an outright majority requires 136, and the polls suggest that the DA will need coalition partners.

The DA may win the most votes and still fail to assemble a governing majority. ActionSA, the IFP, the Freedom Front Plus, the Patriotic Alliance and smaller parties could become decisive in negotiations. The EFF and MK Party could also influence the outcome if the council is sufficiently fragmented.

The DA is wrong to assume that anger with the ANC will translate into support for itself. The party is asking voters to trust it to govern, while many remain unconvinced that its vision for South Africa adequately addresses the need for economic transformation.

For many black voters, the ANC remains the main party that appreciates the need to change the racial distribution of economic power.

The DA’s opposition to aspects of the existing black economic empowerment framework is a case in point. The party argues that BEE has enriched politically connected elites while failing to create sufficient jobs or lift the poor out of poverty. There is a legitimate debate to be had about the policy’s failures and whether its benefits have been distributed fairly.

But the failure of BEE is not proof that transformation is unnecessary. The Commission for Employment Equity’s latest report continues to show racial inequalities at the highest levels of management. Black South Africans remain under-represented in positions where decisions about investment, employment and ownership are made.

Replacing race-based redress with a needs-based approach may appeal to voters who believe that the ANC has used empowerment to reward its allies. But to voters who see race as a continuing determinant of access to economic power, the DA’s position risks looking less like a new route to transformation than a retreat from it.

The same political problem arises in healthcare and education. The DA opposes the ANC’s National Health Insurance model, but millions of South Africans depend on an overstretched public health system. They want to know how the party’s alternative will ensure access to specialists, modern equipment and quality treatment, not simply why the government’s proposal is wrong.

Education presents a similar challenge. The dispute over school governing bodies and language policy is not simply about institutional autonomy. It is also about whether black children can gain access to public schools that offer places and resources unavailable at nearby schools. For parents whose children must travel long distances because the closest school teaches in Afrikaans, the promise of non-racialism can feel hollow if the system cannot accommodate their needs.

That is the contradiction the DA must resolve if it wants to become a national governing party. It cannot rely indefinitely on the ANC’s failures. It must persuade voters that its own vision offers a credible answer to the inequalities that remain entrenched three decades after apartheid.

Even Cape Town, the DA’s showcase, cannot be exempt from that scrutiny. The city continues to face a severe housing backlog, sprawling informal settlements and gang violence in poor communities. The DA can point to the constraints under which municipalities operate, but it must also explain why so many residents remain excluded from the prosperity associated with the city it has governed for years.

None of this diminishes the opportunity before Zille. Johannesburg needs a government capable of restoring basic services, stabilising its finances and rebuilding public trust. The DA has made a credible case that it is ready to attempt that work.

But competence alone may not be enough to build the national coalition of voters the party needs.

The DA may still grow without winning Johannesburg. But it will have lost a rare chance to demonstrate that its ambitions extend beyond the Western Cape and that it can turn dissatisfaction with the ANC into a durable national movement.

That is why this is now or never for the DA.

Smaller parties could use their bargaining power to secure leading roles in Gauteng’s cities, even if they finish well behind the biggest parties, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

Gayton McKenzie sounded remarkably confident when he named the parties he expects to block a coalition led by the DA in Johannesburg.

“I can tell you now how the coalitions will look in Gauteng. Don’t listen to the excitement of Helen Zille. Let me give you the Joburg coalition and come back to me with this: ANC, EFF, IFP, PA and MK. That is the Joburg coalition.”

The Patriotic Alliance leader left ActionSA off his list, despite its existing coalition with the ANC in Tshwane. Herman Mashaba’s party is polling at around 10% in Johannesburg, making it another potentially significant partner for anyone seeking to keep Zille, the DA’s mayoral candidate, out of office.

Four parties approach the November 4 local elections with an opportunity to wield far more power than their individual electoral fortunes suggest.

MK, ActionSA, the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Patriotic Alliance could decide who becomes mayor of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni.

The ANC and DA may dominate the ballot, but neither can assume that smaller parties will accept its leadership. Councillors elect the mayor, making support from other parties decisive in a fragmented council.

The largest party does not necessarily get the mayoralty. It gets an invitation to negotiate.

The ANC has an advantage because it has shown a willingness to accommodate smaller parties, even when that means surrendering mayoralties or important executive positions.

The four potential kingmakers have reasons to believe they could get more from an agreement with the ANC than from one led by the DA.

This is the politics of the tail wagging the dog.

The eNCA/MarkData poll puts the DA at 35% in Johannesburg, against 21.8% for the ANC. MK has 12.5%, the EFF 11.9%, ActionSA 10.3% and the PA 3.7%.

In Tshwane, the DA polls at 33.9%, the ANC at 24.9%, the EFF at 12.3%, ActionSA at 10.7%, MK at 5.2% and the PA at 2.1%.

Ekurhuleni is more competitive, with the DA on 31.2% and the ANC on 29.4%. MK polls at 11.5%, the EFF at 9.2%, ActionSA at 6.1% and the PA at 2.5%.

The interviews took place between August 10 and September 14. These are snapshots of voting intention, not projected council seats.

But they show why the smaller parties matter. In Johannesburg, the ANC, MK, EFF, PA and IFP together account for 50.6% of voting intention. In Ekurhuleni, the same combination reaches 55.4%.

Those totals include the IFP’s 0.7% in Johannesburg and 2.8% in Ekurhuleni.

They are not confirmed coalitions, and the actual seat totals could differ. Nevertheless, they illustrate a possible route to power for the ANC without the DA.

The question is what the kingmakers will demand in return.

For Jacob Zuma’s MK Party, negotiations extend beyond Gauteng. It wants to consolidate its influence in KwaZulu Natal and strengthen its national position.

An agreement with the ANC could offer executive posts in Gauteng and greater leverage over its former political home. MK may also see an opportunity to pursue national office, although municipal cooperation would not guarantee entry into the Government of National Unity, the coalition formed after the 2024 election.

Mashaba wants a city to prove his point. He has made clear that he will not work with Zille again, telling the Financial Mail and Scrolla podcast Sharp Sharp that she cannot be trusted.

ActionSA’s support could influence who governs both Johannesburg and Tshwane. The latter matters particularly to Mashaba because it is the only metro his party currently leads.

The ANC supported ActionSA’s Nasiphi Moya for mayor in October 2024, after the removal of DA mayor Cilliers Brink. A renewed agreement could help ActionSA retain the city and demonstrate that its policies can produce effective municipal government.

For Mashaba, this is about more than keeping Zille out. It is an opportunity to build ActionSA’s national profile through a record in office.

The ANC, meanwhile, could retain influence in the capital without insisting on the mayoralty. That may be a price worth paying to prevent the DA from controlling Tshwane.

The EFF’s relationship with the ANC has swung between cooperation and confrontation.

In Ekurhuleni, it held executive positions in an arrangement with the ANC before withdrawing in February after two of its mayoral committee members were removed. Those committees oversee municipal departments, making their portfolios important sources of governing influence.

The EFF’s support could again prove decisive in the city.

Julius Malema also wants to turn electoral support into national executive power. He has indicated that the EFF would consider joining the GNU if the DA and Freedom Front Plus left.

The ANC cannot guarantee him a ministerial position or give the EFF everything it wants in Ekurhuleni. But it remains a more plausible partner than the DA, which has ruled out coalition agreements with the EFF.

The PA has the smallest polling share of the four parties in Gauteng. McKenzie nevertheless understands that a few councillors can become decisive when the bigger parties cannot secure a majority.

His party is already in the GNU and has developed working relationships with the ANC in municipal politics. In Johannesburg, Kenny Kunene’s restoration to the transport portfolio demonstrated the importance of that relationship.

A new agreement could offer the PA further opportunities, potentially including the deputy mayoralty, speakership or influential mayoral committee positions.

McKenzie also sees the ANC as a partner in Western Cape councils. Together, they hope to reduce the DA’s dominance in Cape Town and force it into coalition negotiations.

The common thread linking these four parties is the opportunity to acquire power.

“I am saying the PA will work with anybody that gives us power…the political space is a terrain of power. We will work in the PA with anybody. We will even work with this gogo,” McKenzie said, referring to Zille.

His willingness to contemplate working with her is revealing. The negotiating position can change when the rewards change.

The ANC’s readiness to support smaller party mayors and distribute executive positions could give it an advantage after November 4.

The DA has potential partners, and its insistence on clear agreements and shared governing principles has merit. But refusing to work with the EFF and MK narrows its options.

If it also expects smaller partners to accept its leadership and surrender strategic portfolios, it risks making agreements harder to achieve.

For the kingmakers, negotiations will concern mayoralties, executive posts, policy concessions and influence over municipal budgets.

The ANC may surrender some authority to retain a larger share of power. Smaller parties must decide whether the rewards justify the compromises with partners whose policies and ambitions may differ sharply from their own.

Their electoral support may be modest, but their bargaining power could be substantial.

In Gauteng’s metros, parties with fewer votes could end up setting the price of power.

The court ruling restored the ANC’s affected candidates and gave Fikile Mbalula a political lifeline ahead of its 2027 leadership contest, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

It is not difficult to understand why ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula was overcome by emotion when the Constitutional Court ruled in the party’s favour in its candidate list dispute with the Electoral Commission.

His entire political future had been hanging on that ruling. The court saved his goose.

The man who calls himself the boss at Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in central Johannesburg, has long seen himself as a future president of the party and the country.

Those ambitions gained momentum when he was elected secretary general at the ANC’s 2022 conference at Nasrec. He had previously led its Youth League.

His rise survived controversy over a luxury family holiday in Dubai in 2016, costing roughly R680,000. Part of the bill was funded through an arrangement with Yusuf Dockrat, a director of Sedgars Sport, which supplied the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee while Mbalula was sports minister.

Mbalula maintained that the money was a loan he repaid. The National Prosecuting Authority previously declined to prosecute over the trip.

He has also faced allegations in affidavits that R3-million linked to misappropriated National Lotteries Commission grants helped finance a Bryanston house intended for him. Mbalula has disputed his association with the property and maintained that he does not own it.

In a party long haunted by its leaders’ “smallanyana skeletons”, these controversies did not stop his advance.

For months, his name has circulated for deputy president, and even president Paul Mashatile should become unavailable to contest the top position.

Then came Friday, August 28, the deadline for submitting candidates for the November 4 local elections.

The ANC said it had captured the required information before the deadline, but the final electronic submission step was not completed for candidates in six municipalities.

Four were in the Eastern Cape: Sundays River Valley, Walter Sisulu, Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns. The others were Mangaung in the Free State and uMshwathi in KwaZulu Natal.

In Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, the ANC faced having neither ward candidates nor proportional representation candidates, whose lists are used to allocate council seats according to each party’s vote.

The blunder brought Mbalula into direct conflict with Eastern Cape structures in a province expected to help launch his campaign for higher office.

Regions threatened to withdraw their support and demanded his resignation before the December 2027 elective conference.

Allegations of list tampering intensified the crisis. An internal report, described in published reporting, identified 34 material changes to the Eastern Cape lists, including removals, insertions, replacements and changes in rankings.

The fallout fuelled branch revolts, disrupted meetings and demands for Mbalula’s head.

With Jacob Zuma’s MK Party having severely weakened the ANC’s electoral position in KZN, the Eastern Cape has become even more important to its leadership calculations.

MK won about 45% of the provincial vote in 2024 and now threatens ANC control of municipalities, including eThekwini.

At the heart of the Eastern Cape calculation is the OR Tambo region, which includes Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill. Winning an ANC conference without substantial support from this region and the broader province would be a formidable challenge.

That is how high the stakes were for Mbalula.

The fallout also put him into conflict with Andile Lungisa, who says the ANC’s National Executive Committee, its leadership body between conferences, had approved him as its Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral candidate.

Lungisa challenged his removal from the municipality’s proportional representation list, alleging that Mbalula had instructed officials to take his name off.

The ANC cited his criminal record and vetting requirements. But the Johannesburg High Court found the removal unlawful and ordered the party to restore him to its internal list. Submission to the Electoral Commission remained subject to electoral law, and the ANC announced that it would appeal.

The ruling concerned the limits of Mbalula’s authority under the party’s rules. His office did not give him unrestricted power to amend a final list.

Eastern Cape provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi also accused Mbalula of ordering Lungisa’s removal in a letter threatening defamation proceedings over attempts to blame him for the list crisis.

Granted, ANC guidelines allow adjustments to achieve gender balance and improve skills and youth representation. But those interventions must follow the party’s rules.

Had the Constitutional Court bid failed, Mbalula would have been toast.

So how realistic are his chances at a future conference?

Very high, actually, because his position puts him at the centre of the organisational preparations.

The secretariat oversees the administrative machinery supporting branch, regional and provincial conferences. Those structures produce the delegates who eventually elect the national leadership.

The ANC expects its structures to meet representation requirements, including those concerning women and young people. Interventions to enforce those requirements can carry considerable political weight.

In a party divided by factions, there are fears that organisational interventions can also serve factional interests.

A secretary general preparing for a conference at which he hopes to contest therefore occupies a powerful position.

Mashatile demonstrated the importance of that office when he oversaw the secretariat before the 2022 conference. Although Ramaphosa’s allies secured several leading positions, Mashatile assembled enough support to become deputy president.

Beyond the power of the office, regional and cultural representation also feature in Mbalula’s appeal.

National chairperson Gwede Mantashe, who comes from Cala in the Eastern Cape, has said he will not contest again.

Eastern Cape lobbyists who believe the province deserves stronger representation have promoted provincial chairperson Oscar Mabuyane for deputy president. Both Mabuyane and Mbalula feature in unofficial leadership slates.

Mbalula is seen as a powerful contender within Ramaphosa’s faction in the expected 2027 succession contest.

Known affectionately by his Mpondomise clan name, Jola, he is Xhosa but also comes from the Free State. That gives him another provincial connection to cultivate.

He would have struggled to secure support there had the ANC’s Mangaung list remained excluded.

Mangaung, the metro that includes Bloemfontein, is already vulnerable to losing its outright ANC majority. The party won just 50.63% of the vote in the 2021 local elections.

Mbalula has therefore survived another major scare, even though the handling of these administrative processes should have earned him a well deserved clobbering.

ANC supporters in Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill faced a ballot without their party because of a failure on his watch.

The court restored that option. For Mbalula, it also kept his own political ambitions alive.

His tears were the relief of a man whose campaign had survived to fight another ANC conference.

Zuma’s hospitalisation raises a question about whether MK can turn loyalty to its leader into a political organisation capable of outlasting him, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

Anyone who has met Jacob Zuma will tell you that it is difficult not to be charmed by his warmth. You might expect a former president to be a stately figure, shaped by the formality of high office. Instead, his simplicity and common touch can catch you off guard.

For those of us working in Johannesburg, a thousand kilometres from our families in the rural Eastern Cape, there is something familiar about his welcome. He greets you like a father or grandfather receiving his children home for Christmas.

I first met Zuma more than 20 years ago. I have reported on him for much of that time, often disagreeing profoundly with his leadership and political choices. Yet I have never stopped admiring his ability to connect with ordinary people, make them feel seen and put them at ease.

That is the paradox of the man known by his clan name, Msholozi: you can disagree with the politician and still love the man.

Perhaps that is why news of his hospitalisation has touched such a nerve among supporters and others who have encountered him beyond politics. Their concern is about more than a former president. It is about a man whose warmth has sustained a political bond that no successor can automatically inherit.

His hospitalisation has exposed a vulnerability at the heart of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, known as MK: its dependence on a leader whose personal authority has yet to be matched by a clearly established succession process.

Zuma has reportedly been receiving care at Netcare St Anne’s Hospital in Pietermaritzburg after becoming unwell while campaigning in KwaZulu-Natal. MK initially described his hospital visit as a routine examination and said he was healthy and in good spirits. Conflicting reports have nevertheless fuelled anxiety as the November 4 local elections approach.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has confirmed that Zuma is receiving medical treatment and that the military surgeon general has been briefed. He wished his predecessor a speedy recovery.

The details of Zuma’s condition have not been publicly established. Reports that his family resisted a proposed transfer to 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria have added to the uncertainty, but the arrangements have not been fully clarified.

The government must respect Zuma’s medical privacy. Conflicting accounts, however, have created an information vacuum around a man whose political fortunes are inseparable from those of a major party.

For MK, the timing could hardly be more difficult. It needs to demonstrate that its remarkable emergence in 2024 was more than a temporary protest against the ANC.

Zuma remains central to that proposition. He draws crowds, connects with supporters in KZN and gives opposition to Ramaphosa a recognisable identity. His absence from the campaign trail would leave the organisation facing a test it has not convincingly prepared for.

Can the party he has built survive the day he is no longer able to lead it?

MK has experienced leadership changes, disciplinary disputes and factional tensions without holding an elective conference. Zuma’s appointments have shaped its structures without necessarily settling who would succeed him.

His son Duduzane’s appointment as first deputy president has inevitably raised succession questions. Tony Yengeni, the second deputy president, is also part of the leadership equation.

The published constitution describes the deputy’s role as deputising for the president. The party must still explain how its two deputy positions would operate in a permanent transition.

Neither appointment, by itself, establishes who would become president should Zuma die or become permanently incapacitated, or whether the organisation would accept that person’s authority.

Would MK rally behind a successor chosen by Zuma? Would it insist on an elective conference? Or would competing groups dispute whoever emerged?

These questions concern control of the party, its MPs, its provincial structures and the careers of people who have built their political futures around Zuma.

An unsettled succession could turn existing disagreements into a struggle over the organisation’s identity.

In KZN, the consequences could extend beyond MK. Its 2024 performance reshaped the province’s politics. Its support reflects opposition to the ANC, dissatisfaction with governance and, for some voters, a connection to Zuma’s political and cultural identity.

His appeal to sections of the Zulu electorate cannot be reduced to traditionalism. He has combined political defiance and cultural familiarity with a claim to represent people neglected by the governing establishment.

Duduzane may inherit his father’s surname, but political authority does not automatically pass through family ties. Nor can a successor assume that those who rallied behind Zuma will remain loyal regardless of who leads MK.

The party must reconcile several constituencies: disaffected former ANC supporters, voters drawn to its message and people whose attachment to Zuma is more personal or cultural.

If competing leaders claim different parts of that legacy, MK could fragment. Some supporters might remain with the organisation, others could follow individual leaders, while some might reconsider their allegiance altogether.

None of these outcomes is inevitable. All deserve consideration.

Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi and the Inkatha Freedom Party offer a revealing comparison.

Buthelezi announced in 2019 that he would not seek another term as IFP president. Velenkosini Hlabisa was elected unopposed at its national conference that August.

Buthelezi remained influential until his death in September 2023, but the leadership transition had already taken place.

That distinction mattered. The IFP did not have to resolve its presidency for the first time while mourning its founder. It had a recognised successor and structures capable of allocating responsibilities.

It has remained an important force in KZN’s provincial government and municipal politics. Succession planning alone does not explain that position, but the transition shows the value of establishing leadership legitimacy before a founder’s departure.

MK has not demonstrated the same degree of preparation.

There is also the question of what Zuma represents beyond party politics. His relationship with the ANC under Ramaphosa is deeply antagonistic. MK opposes both the ANC and the Government of National Unity, the national coalition formed after the 2024 election.

If Zuma were to die, Ramaphosa would face the delicate responsibility of recognising a former president while navigating a relationship marked by bitter disputes.

A state funeral would provide national recognition without requiring him to endorse every aspect of Zuma’s record.

The family would also have legitimate interests in the arrangements. South Africa’s official policy provides for state funerals for former presidents and recognises a role for their families in determining aspects of the ceremony and burial.

Those arrangements should not become a contest over ownership of the deceased.

The prolonged litigation between former Zambian president Edgar Lungu’s family and the Zambian government illustrates how a funeral can become a political and legal confrontation.

The wider danger is allowing uncertainty to deepen mistrust. Speculation about Zuma’s health, a military hospital transfer and possible security deployments has created fertile ground for rumour.

MK has challenged reports linking his health to possible unrest in KZN. There is no basis to treat violence as inevitable.

Clear communication about political leadership and responsibilities, within the limits of medical privacy, is in everyone’s interest.

Zuma’s supporters face an anxious period when their party needs confidence, momentum and visible leadership. MK must demonstrate that it is more than one man’s vehicle, even as it depends on him to mobilise voters.

Buthelezi understood the importance of preparing his party for a future beyond himself. Zuma’s greatest political legacy may depend on whether the movement he built can do the same.

Zweli Mkhize could help the ANC recover support lost to Jacob Zuma in KwaZulu Natal while strengthening his own influence ahead of the party’s 2027 leadership conference, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

If the next serious challenge to Cyril Ramaphosa’s authority inside the ANC emerges from KwaZulu Natal, the seeds may already be visible.

That is the paradox confronting the ANC ahead of the November 4 local government elections. The politician who may be best equipped to help it recover from Jacob Zuma’s assault on its KZN support base has already demonstrated that he can build a formidable national challenge to Ramaphosa.

That politician is Zweli Mkhize. The timing could hardly be more awkward.

The local elections fall just over a year before the ANC’s December 2027 elective conference, where delegates choose the party’s leadership. Their significance therefore extends far beyond municipalities.

Inside Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters, the results will be read as a measure of which leaders have momentum, which provinces remain loyal and who can still mobilise voters and branches.

Nowhere will that calculation matter more than in KZN.

Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party, known as MK, has transformed the province from an ANC fortress into its most dangerous electoral battlefield. On the national ballot in KZN in 2024, the ANC received just 17.6%, while MK took almost 46%.

Recent polling suggests MK remains strong in eThekwini, although polls should not be confused with election results.

The ANC knows it has a Zuma problem. It reportedly plans to deploy veterans, including Mkhize and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, to counter his influence.

And there lies the contradiction. Mkhize could be the ANC’s antidote to Zuma. He could also become an antidote to Ramaphosa’s dominance of the ANC.

In 2017, Ramaphosa defeated Dlamini Zuma, the former African Union Commission chair, by 2,440 votes to 2,261. Five years later, Mkhize received 1,897 votes against Ramaphosa’s 2,476.

Two consecutive ANC conferences. Two major challengers with deep KZN political roots. Twice, Ramaphosa confronted a candidate capable of attracting a substantial share of the delegates.

That makes Mkhize’s deployment much bigger than a municipal campaign.

There is another reason why the question resonates in KZN.

Among sections of the province’s ANC establishment, there is a perception that the Ramaphosa faction has progressively marginalised its old political heavyweights from the centre of national ANC power.

This does not mean every KZN leader has been removed or that there is a formal policy to exclude the province. The perception is that the process is subtler, and potentially more politically damaging.

Then there is the treatment of ANC veterans.

Mavuso Msimang, born in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg, spent six decades in the ANC and was elected deputy president of its Veterans League in 2023. The former senior civil servant and liberation veteran was hardly a political lightweight.

He resigned in December that year, accusing the organisation of corruption, nepotism and incompetence. His resignation followed ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula’s public warning against veterans campaigning against the party.

Mbalula later acknowledged that his comments had impugned Msimang’s integrity and apologised. The ANC subsequently announced that Msimang had agreed to withdraw his resignation.

The episode matters because Msimang was precisely the sort of elder whose institutional memory should have been an asset to a party fighting for survival. Instead, it became another symbol of the uneasy relationship between the current leadership and sections of the old guard.

KZN’s bench of prominent political figures is further complicated by the Madlanga Commission, which is investigating allegations of criminal infiltration and interference in the criminal justice system.

The province’s most recognisable figures aligned with the current leadership include police minister Senzo Mchunu, who is on special leave, and former police minister Bheki Cele. Neither is ideally positioned to become the reassuring public face of an ANC campaign.

Mchunu’s leave and the allegations under examination have constrained him politically. During preliminary parliamentary committee deliberations, members said the evidence before them did not establish a corrupt relationship between him and Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who faces criminal charges. Other members argued that concerns still required investigation.

That is not the same as a final determination of every allegation.

Cele faces a further political cloud. The Madlanga Commission has heard allegations that Crime Intelligence funds were diverted to him. Matlala has also made allegations about their dealings before Parliament’s committee.

Cele has denied receiving money from Matlala. The allegations remain untested in court, but reports that a police forensic investigation has recommended his prosecution over alleged benefits from Matlala further complicate his position.

This leaves the ANC with an extraordinary problem.

At the moment it needs a heavyweight KZN politician who can speak credibly to voters drawn to Zuma, some of its most recognisable figures are sidelined, embroiled in factional controversy or constrained by investigations.

Which brings us back to Mkhize.

He offers something the ANC desperately needs: political credibility in KZN without being Jacob Zuma.

He has been premier, ANC treasurer general and health minister. He knows the province’s political and traditional structures and has a family connection to the Zulu royal household.

His tenure as health minister nevertheless ended amid the Digital Vibes contracting scandal, in which he has denied wrongdoing.

His greatest political asset, and potentially his greatest liability for the Ramaphosa faction, is his demonstrated capacity to command support beyond KZN.

Mkhize does not have to be invented as a challenger. He has already been one.

That is why a possible convergence between Mkhize and Dlamini Zuma deserves watching.

There is no evidence that such an alliance currently exists. But their performances in the last two leadership contests are striking. Dlamini Zuma nearly defeated Ramaphosa in 2017. Mkhize secured 43.38% of the valid presidential votes in 2022.

Those were separate contests, not voting blocs that can simply be added together. But if their political networks converged around a common candidate or project before 2027, they could unite constituencies that previously challenged Ramaphosa separately.

That would not automatically produce a new ANC president. Conferences are unpredictable, and alliances that look logical from outside often collapse when delegates begin counting numbers.

But it could change the balance of power. If Mkhize helps the ANC improve significantly in KZN, he emerges with renewed political stature.

The ANC has another reservoir of political capital it seems reluctant to fully exploit.

Mathews Phosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka, Trevor Manuel and Thabo Mbeki represent different strands of its history. Collectively, they possess credibility accumulated over decades in government, business, international institutions and the liberation movement.

Some remain influential in the private sector. Others have extensive international networks.

Why are they not more visible in a campaign where the ANC needs to reassure business, investors and professionals that it remains capable of renewal?

The answer may partly lie in the uneasy relationship between the current leadership and its predecessors.

Mbalula’s public warning this year that veterans should stop criticising the leadership revealed that sensitivity. He specifically mentioned Mbeki and acknowledged criticism from Phosa and Msimang.

The ANC needs the authority of its history precisely when it appears least comfortable with some of the people who embody it.

Zuma understands the value of political memory. MK has presented itself as the custodian of a particular version of ANC and liberation history while campaigning against the ANC itself.

To counter that, the ANC needs people who can speak convincingly about where the movement came from, why it lost its way and why voters should believe it can recover.

In KZN, Mkhize may be the most obvious bridge between that history and the present.

But bridges can be crossed in both directions.

Ramaphosa may need Mkhize to fight Zuma. The ANC may need him to recover KZN. If he succeeds, however, he could arrive at the 2027 conference with renewed political authority.

The irony is that the ANC’s most effective weapon against Zuma may also be the politician whose success most complicates Ramaphosa’s final stretch as party president.

South Africa is spending billions and deploying soldiers against crime, but the real measure is whether fewer people are being murdered and more criminal networks are being dismantled, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

South Africa is living through a crisis of public safety.

27 people were killed in two mass shootings in a single weekend. Eleven more were killed in KwaMakhutha, KwaZulu Natal, days earlier. In Ekurhuleni, 11 women’s bodies have been discovered over two months while police investigate killings that have left communities fearful.

Even after a 5.9% year on year drop in the latest SAPS crime statistics, the country recorded 5,427 murders between April and June 2026. That is almost 60 murders every day.

Yet the government has a strategy, a budget and growing assistance from the military. President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised additional police officers, intelligence led operations, the dismantling of criminal syndicates and a renewed fight against gender based violence.

The question is no longer what the president intends to do. It is what the country has received in return for years of promises, billions of rands in public spending and repeated declarations of war against crime.

In March, Ramaphosa authorised the deployment of 2,200 soldiers to support the police at an estimated cost of R823 million. Operation Prosper targets illegal mining and gangsterism in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, North West and Western Cape. The deployment is scheduled to continue until March 2027.

The strategy uses the military’s logistical and operational capacity to support police in crime hotspots.

In July, police and the military reported that the operation had produced 1,149 arrests during June, along with the seizure of illegal firearms and mining equipment.

These are significant enforcement activities. But arrests alone do not prove that criminal networks have been dismantled or that communities are safer.

How many arrests have resulted in convictions? How much money has been recovered from criminal syndicates? What measurable reduction in violent crime can be attributed to the deployment?

The latest massacres raise uncomfortable questions about the reach of the operation. The military cannot be deployed to every violent crime hotspot and soldiers cannot be expected to prevent every shooting. But the government should explain how its targeted deployments are coordinated with police intelligence and local crime prevention operations.

It must also demonstrate that these deployments are confronting the criminal networks and conditions they were designed to address.

The official statistics may show a decline in some offences. That does not erase the severity of a murder rate that remains extraordinarily high, nor does it necessarily reflect how safe people feel in their neighbourhoods.

Ramaphosa must move beyond national totals and demonstrate improvement in the communities most affected by violent crime.

How many murder investigations result in arrests, prosecutions and convictions? How many illegal firearms are traced to criminal networks? Are repeat shootings declining in identified hotspots?

Perhaps the most troubling question concerns the ability of the police to anticipate and prevent organised violence.

Ramaphosa’s 2026 State of the Nation Address promised to consolidate intelligence, identify priority syndicates and establish teams across different agencies to dismantle criminal networks.

But intelligence led policing requires trusted informants, competent investigators, effective information sharing and leadership that has not been compromised by corruption.

The allegations involving senior police officials make this an urgent institutional concern.

The Madlanga Commission was established after KwaZulu Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi alleged that criminal syndicates had infiltrated parts of the criminal justice system. Its hearings and referrals have raised serious questions about criminality, political interference and accountability within law enforcement.

The government must establish whether the police have the leadership, resources and institutional integrity to confront increasingly sophisticated criminal networks.

Large drug seizures and regular operations may demonstrate activity. They do not necessarily reveal who finances the trade, controls distribution or profits from it.

The same applies to illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking and extortion. Arresting individual perpetrators is not the same as dismantling the networks behind them.

The economic consequences of this insecurity are substantial.

Businesses must pay for private security, insurance and protective infrastructure while also worrying about the safety of employees and customers.

In struggling central business districts, crime can discourage investment, reduce foot traffic and undermine efforts to revive evening economies. Restaurants, retailers and entertainment venues lose valuable trading hours when customers and staff are afraid to travel after dark.

Tourism is also exposed. The sector contributed an estimated R361.7 billion directly to the economy and supported about 954,000 jobs in 2024, according to the Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development.

South Africa welcomed more than 10.5 million tourists in 2025, surpassing levels recorded before the pandemic. That success demonstrates the sector’s resilience, but continued growth depends partly on visitor confidence and safe destinations.

Crime does not deter every tourist. But insecurity imposes costs on operators, shapes visitor choices and threatens the country’s ability to realise its full tourism potential.

Domestic tourism matters too. South Africans should be able to enjoy their own cities, visit attractions and support local businesses without constantly worrying about their safety.

The same insecurity undermines government plans to attract investment and regenerate urban centres. Investors considering commercial property, hospitality or retail developments need confidence that employees, customers and infrastructure will be protected.

A city that empties after dark because of fear is a city losing economic opportunities.

The crisis of violence against women exposes another gap between government commitments and lived experience.

Ramaphosa has repeatedly described gender based violence as a national crisis and pledged decisive action. Yet the discovery of 11 women’s bodies in Ekurhuleni over two months has renewed concern about the protection of women and the effectiveness of prevention and investigation.

The government has a National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide, but the public deserves a transparent account of its implementation.

How much has been allocated and spent? Which organisations receive funding? How much reaches shelters, victim support services, prevention programmes and forensic investigations? What independent monitoring shows whether these interventions are working?

Presidential condemnations and strategic plans matter. But women need functioning police services, accessible protection, effective investigations and a justice system that holds perpetrators accountable.

The state must demonstrate that its commitments are producing safer homes, workplaces, streets and public spaces.

Ramaphosa’s record since taking office in 2018 should therefore be assessed against outcomes, not announcements.

Police recruitment, military deployments, arrests and budget allocations are inputs. The real measures are fewer murders, successful prosecutions, dismantled criminal networks, reduced violence against women and greater public confidence in the state.

There is no simple solution to South Africa’s entrenched crime problem. Poverty, inequality, unemployment, illegal firearms, organised criminal economies and institutional weakness all contribute to it.

Nor can the president personally prevent every act of violence. But he is responsible for ensuring that the government has a coherent strategy, competent leadership and systems that deliver results.

The latest massacres should prompt more than another round of outrage and promises of decisive action.

They should trigger an honest assessment of what the government has spent, what its operations have achieved and where its approach must change.

South Africa cannot build thriving cities, attract sustained investment or expand its tourism economy while millions of people live with the fear of violence. Nor can it claim meaningful progress against gender based violence while women continue to face grave threats to their safety.

Eight years into Ramaphosa’s presidency, the country needs an honest accounting of the war on crime.

The question is not how many operations have been announced or how many arrests have been made. It is whether the state is becoming more capable of protecting its people.

Until the government can prove that it is, its war on crime will remain a campaign of activity without enough evidence of victory.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will later this week discuss Ramaphosa’s war on crime and whether government operations are making South Africans safer on the Sharp Sharp podcast from Scrolla and the Financial Mail.

The ANC’s failure to register candidates has given neglected communities a rare opportunity to demand more than another political promise, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

For the people of Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, the ANC’s candidate list blunder is not primarily a story about the ANC.

It is a story about them.

For years, politics in parts of the Eastern Cape has seemed less like a contest than a permanent condition. The ANC has dominated local government for generation after generation. Yet the basic economic circumstances of many residents remain extraordinarily difficult.

In Ingquza Hill, just 17.6% of households had piped water inside their homes in the 2022 Census. In the 2011 Census, youth unemployment was recorded at 60.9%.

Port St Johns tells much the same story. Only 19% of households had piped water inside their homes in 2022. Its youth unemployment rate was 61% in 2011.

These are not abstract statistics. They describe communities where social grants can become the economic foundation, young people reach adulthood without jobs and the promise of development remains just that, a promise.

Now something extraordinary has happened.

Because the ANC failed to complete the registration of its candidates on time, voters in six municipalities are heading into the 4 November local elections with an electoral map fundamentally different from the one their politicians expected.

The Electoral Court rejected the ANC’s application to restore 181 excluded candidates. The affected municipalities are Ingquza Hill, Port St Johns, Mangaung Metro, uMshwathi, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley. The ANC says it will pursue further legal options.

The consequences are especially dramatic in Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, where the ANC has no candidates on the ballot.

In 2021, the ANC won 46 of Ingquza Hill’s 64 council seats. It won 31 of the 39 seats in Port St Johns.

The political establishment may spend the next few weeks asking which opposition party will benefit.

That is the wrong question.

The more important question is what happens when the party that has dominated a municipality for decades is suddenly no longer an option.

There is a temptation to regard this merely as an electoral gift to whichever opposition party can capture displaced ANC voters.

But the opportunity is bigger than that.

It allows voters to ask every party seeking their support a more uncomfortable question:

What exactly will you do with this place?

Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns possess assets that most municipalities would envy.

The Wild Coast is one of the country’s great natural assets. Port St Johns describes itself as the centre of Wild Coast tourism, with opportunities around its coastline, beaches, fishing and natural environment.

Yet the surrounding communities remain among the country’s poorest.

That contradiction should embarrass every political party.

The region should not have to choose between development and environmental protection as though the only alternatives were a mine or poverty.

The real challenge is to construct a development model in which local communities share in the economic value of their land and natural resources, whether that value comes from tourism, agriculture, mineral resources, conservation or a combination of them.

Xolobeni illustrates the problem.

For more than 15 years, communities have fought over a proposed titanium mine on the Wild Coast. The dispute has become a national symbol of the conflict between mining, environmental protection, community rights and economic development.

The 2018 Baleni judgment established that communities holding informal land rights must give consent before mining rights can be granted over their land.

But after all those years, the fundamental question remains unanswered:

How do you turn the natural wealth of the Wild Coast into economic opportunity for the people who live there?

That requires political leadership.

Not slogans about transformation. Not promises made at election time. And not another decade of arguing while young people remain unemployed.

The same question is visible further inland in Mangaung.

Bloemfontein should be one of the country’s great inland economic centres. Instead, the metro has been under government intervention since 2019, with the intervention escalated to national level in 2022.

Recent reporting describes deteriorating infrastructure, returned infrastructure grants, water losses, sewage problems and billions of rand in unauthorised expenditure.

The result is not merely damaged roads or unreliable services.

It is lost economic opportunity.

A city cannot attract investors while its infrastructure is deteriorating. Agriculture cannot flourish without functioning roads, water and electricity. Tourism cannot grow when public spaces decay. Businesses cannot create jobs indefinitely when municipal failure becomes another cost of operating.

That is why the candidate list fiasco matters beyond the ANC.

It has unexpectedly forced the question of governance onto the ballot.

The DA will point voters towards uMngeni in KwaZulu Natal as evidence that municipal government can improve within a single electoral cycle.

There is evidence that the municipality’s financial and administrative performance improved after the DA took control in 2021. Its records show consecutive financially unqualified audit outcomes, compared with a qualified outcome in 2020/21. The municipality also says its roads maintenance budget increased from R11 million to R42 million.

Those achievements include political claims that voters should test against municipal records. But the broader lesson does not belong exclusively to the DA.

Municipal performance can change.

That is an important lesson for voters in the six municipalities affected by the ANC’s administrative failure.

They have choices.

Some may choose the DA. Others may choose the EFF, MK or another established or emerging party. Some may choose independents or civic organisations.

The ANC’s absence does not leave an empty ballot. It leaves a more fragmented political marketplace.

Fragmentation carries its own risks.

A party that has never governed a municipality has no municipal record against which voters can judge its promises. A party can campaign brilliantly and still discover that running a municipality requires something different.

It requires competent administrators, functioning revenue systems, credible budgets, infrastructure maintenance, procurement controls and the ability to attract investment.

Voters should therefore not simply ask which party is angry with the ANC.

They should ask which party can run a municipality.

Can it collect revenue and maintain roads and water infrastructure?

Can it produce credible budgets, achieve clean or unqualified audits and stop corruption and waste?

Can it attract businesses and turn a municipality’s natural and economic assets into opportunities for local people?

The ANC’s candidate list failure was an extraordinary political blunder.

For the ANC, it is plainly bad news.

For democracy, however, there is another possibility.

It could become a blessing in disguise, not because it guarantees that an opposition party will govern better, but because it has temporarily broken the assumption that the political status quo is inevitable.

In Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, voters have suddenly been handed an unusual political laboratory.

The ANC cannot ask them to vote for its candidates.

That means the opposition cannot simply ask voters to vote against the ANC.

They must persuade them to vote for something.

The people of the Wild Coast, Mangaung, uMshwathi, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley do not need another promise that their turn is coming.

They need evidence that somebody knows how to make their turn happen.

That is the real test created by the ANC’s blunder.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will discuss how the ANC’s candidate list blunder has transformed elections in six municipalities. Hear on Thursday why the mistake could give neglected voters a rare chance to demand better government on Sharp Sharp, the politics and business podcast from Scrolla and the Financial Mail.

Pictured above: Vote ANC banners. 

Image source: @MYANC/X

Party levies may offer a cleaner form of political funding, but they become a tool of control when parties can remove representatives who refuse to pay, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe Party has demonstrated that it can mobilise millions of angry voters. It has not yet demonstrated that it can build, finance and govern a durable political institution.

Two months before the municipal elections, its apparent cash shortage has exposed the gap between the power of Zuma’s name and the weakness of the organisation constructed around it.

MK emerged from the 2024 election with 58 seats in the National Assembly, the official opposition benches and political dominance in KwaZulu Natal. It achieved in a matter of months what many opposition parties have failed to accomplish over decades.

But votes do not automatically create an institution. A functioning party needs reliable income, audited accounts, competent administrators, regional offices and systems capable of paying staff and contesting thousands of municipal wards.

MK appears to have built its electoral machinery faster than its financial foundations.

Its latest confrontation with its own public representatives illustrates the problem. Zuma and party treasurer Brian Molefe reportedly instructed KwaZulu Natal MPLs to settle outstanding party levies within seven days. Failure to pay would, they warned, be treated as an automatic resignation.

One representative was reportedly told that R96,000 was outstanding.

This is more than a story about MK struggling for cash. It exposes an overlooked feature of South African politics. Taxpayers pay the salaries of MPs, MPLs and councillors. Political parties claim a share of those salaries, while controlling whether the representatives remain party members and retain their seats.

The practice is not unique to MK. It is widespread across the political spectrum.

The Electoral Commission’s latest political funding report shows that the EFF collected R50.9-million from membership fees and levies during the 2024/25 financial year. The ANC collected R49.7-million, the DA R36.7-million, the IFP R23.8-million, the Patriotic Alliance R8.5-million and ActionSA R6-million. MK reported R2.5-million from the same category.

These are significant sums, particularly for smaller parties. Membership fees and levies represented about 87% of the EFF’s total income, 56% of the PA’s, 38% of the IFP’s and 34% of MK’s. For the ANC and DA, which have larger and more diverse funding networks, the proportions were about 14% and 18%.

The figures demonstrate why public representatives are important financial assets to their parties. Every parliamentary or council seat brings political influence, public funding and a potential monthly contribution from the person occupying it.

There is nothing inherently improper about this arrangement. Political parties are expensive institutions to operate. They employ staff, maintain offices, commission research, communicate with voters and contest elections. Asking representatives who gained office through the party to contribute towards its upkeep can be defended as organisational solidarity.

Levies may also present less risk than dependence on a handful of wealthy donors expecting access or policy influence. Money collected from party members and representatives can help build a more self-sufficient organisation.

The problem arises when a contribution becomes the price of retaining public office.

Former BOSA Gauteng MPL Ayanda Allie was required to contribute 10% of her salary to the party. She acknowledged withholding the payment but said she was paying for constituency travel and accommodation herself because BOSA would not cover those expenses.

The disagreement formed part of the breakdown between Allie and BOSA. She was expelled and later joined ActionSA.

Her case raises an important question. If a representative must choose between paying a party levy and financing work among constituents, to whom is that representative ultimately accountable: voters, the legislature or the party treasurer?

South Africa’s proportional representation system gives party headquarters enormous power over the answer. Most legislators do not hold constituencies that they won in their own names. They enter legislatures through party lists and ordinarily lose their seats if they lose membership of the party that nominated them.

For an ordinary national MP, that can mean losing an annual remuneration package worth about R1.32-million.

The result is a formidable enforcement mechanism. A demand from the party is never an ordinary invoice. Behind it stands the possibility of disciplinary action, expulsion and unemployment.

Zuma’s attempt to treat nonpayment as an “automatic resignation” takes this logic to an extreme. A political party cannot simply convert a disputed debt into a voluntary resignation by declaring it so. But it can follow its disciplinary processes, expel a member and replace that person with another candidate from its list.

That turns party finance into an instrument of political control.

The Electoral Commission’s reporting system does not allow the public to see the full picture. It combines ordinary membership subscriptions with levies paid by public representatives. It is therefore impossible to determine from the published totals how much came from ordinary members and how much was collected from taxpayer funded political salaries.

Voters also cannot easily establish the rates charged by different parties, whether levies are calculated on gross or after tax income, whether ministers pay more than ordinary MPs, or what sanctions apply when payments fall into arrears.

The ANC’s accounts establish that it received R49.7-million in membership fees and levies. They do not reveal what proportion of an MP’s or councillor’s salary the party claims.

The EFF’s R50.9-million is even more striking, but the published category does not show whether that money came mainly from public representatives or the wider membership.

This is a material weakness in a disclosure system intended to reveal who finances political power.

There are other gaps. Donations below the disclosure threshold appear as aggregated amounts, while loans can provide parties with substantial funding without immediately being treated as donations. Income from commercial activities, affiliated organisations and benefits provided in kind can also make the real source of political influence difficult to follow.

MK demonstrates the other side of this limited transparency. Its audited statements recorded total income of just R7.2-million for 2024/25 outside the separate public funding system, including only R380,555 in disclosed donations above the threshold. Yet it ran a national campaign, established structures across the country and became South Africa’s third largest party.

Those figures invite legitimate questions about how its campaign was financed and why a party that won millions of votes is now pursuing its own MPLs for arrears shortly before a crucial election.

MK has not been declared legally bankrupt. But an apparent cash shortage could damage its municipal campaign. Local elections require money for deposits, transport, posters, polling agents, rallies, communications and candidate support across thousands of wards. Zuma’s popularity cannot pay organisers or create reliable financial controls.

The deeper lesson extends beyond MK. South Africa needs political parties that are financially sustainable without being captured by large donors. Representative levies can contribute to that objective, but they should be transparent.

Parties should publish their levy schedules. The Electoral Commission should report membership subscriptions separately from contributions by public representatives. Loans, arrears and forgiven debts should be disclosed clearly. Parties should also distinguish genuine disciplinary misconduct from disputes about money.

MK’s difficulties have opened a useful window into the hidden economics of South African politics. The state funds parties directly. It pays the representatives whom those parties nominate. Parties then reclaim part of those salaries and retain the power to remove representatives who do not comply.

A levy may be one of the cleaner ways of financing a political organisation. But when the organisation demanding the money also controls party membership, discipline and ultimately the seat, the levy becomes more than a contribution.

It becomes the price of remaining in public office.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will discuss how party levies finance South African politics and give party leaders power over public representatives on this week’s Sharp Sharp, the politics and business podcast from Scrolla and the Financial Mail.

Pictured above: Jacob Zuma. 

Image source: uMkhonto Wesizwe/X

The DA says cooperation with the ANC protects stability, but voters may begin to question whether the party is replacing the ANC or preserving it, writes Zukile Majova in Real Politics.

Helen Zille once warned voters that supporting a smaller opposition party was a circuitous way of returning the ANC to power. Two years into the government of national unity, that warning presents an awkward question for her own party: has a vote for the DA also become a vote for the ANC?

The allegation is not entirely fair, but neither is it frivolous.

South Africans did not remove the ANC from power in 2024. They did something more constitutionally precise and politically consequential. They removed its majority and ended its right to govern alone.

The ANC remained the largest party, but it could not elect Cyril Ramaphosa again, pass budgets or form a government without opposition support. The DA used its parliamentary strength to keep Ramaphosa in the presidency and the ANC at the centre of government.

In KwaZulu Natal, where the MK Party emerged as the largest party but fell short of a majority, the DA joined an IFP led provincial coalition that also retained the ANC in government. In both cases, the DA helped construct a governing centre designed principally to exclude MK and the EFF.

There were defensible reasons for doing so.

Businesses, investors and financial markets feared that an ANC coalition with MK and the EFF would weaken fiscal discipline, constitutional institutions and property rights. It could also have disrupted economic reforms in energy, logistics and public administration just as some were beginning to produce results.

The GNU offered continuity without returning the ANC to unchecked power. It promised constitutional stability, more disciplined economic management and an opportunity for the DA and other parties to constrain the ANC from inside government.

That stability has economic value. Investment decisions involving factories, mines, renewable energy projects and infrastructure are made over years, not electoral news cycles. Investors need confidence that budgets will pass, contracts will be respected and policy will not change whenever political pressure rises.

Improved electricity supply, structural reforms, South Africa’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force grey list and the country’s first sovereign credit rating upgrade in two decades have all lifted the economic mood. The GNU cannot claim sole credit for these developments, but its survival has reduced the political uncertainty surrounding them.

The DA can therefore argue that it did not betray its mandate. It used that mandate to prevent a riskier government, protect the constitutional order and pull policy towards the economic centre.

But a justification that worked after the 2024 election cannot give the DA a permanent exemption from explaining what it has become.

Is it still an opposition party seeking to replace the ANC, or is it becoming the ANC’s indispensable constitutional insurance policy?

The local government elections on 4 November will force an answer. The latest Ipsos survey suggests several metros could again produce councils where no party has a majority. It places the ANC at 31% and the DA at 27% in Johannesburg, with the DA ahead in Tshwane and MK dominant in eThekwini.

In April, Zille appeared categorical that the DA would not work with the ANC, MK or EFF in Johannesburg. By July, her position had become more pragmatic.

“You don’t know what coalition you’re going to have until after the elections because you don’t know what options you’re going to get,” she said. “If we don’t get to 50% plus one, we will look at the options and we will take the least bad option. They will all be bad, but we will take the least bad.”

DA leader Geordin Hill Lewis made the underlying calculation even clearer.

“We went into government with the ANC to prevent the MK Party and the EFF from taking government, but it might not replicate itself in other areas,” he said. “We will have to look at the least worst option everywhere, and it will be different everywhere.”

These statements leave the door open to agreements with the ANC where the DA decides that every other possible arrangement would be worse. The GNU may not be replicated across the metros, but its governing logic could be.

For the DA, that logic is simple. When voters produce no majority, the party will choose the arrangement it considers least damaging, even if that means keeping the ANC in office.

The DA would not need to enter a formal coalition to keep the ANC in municipal power. It could support an ANC administration on budgets and motions of confidence, tolerate an ANC led minority government or reach agreements on individual issues while remaining formally in opposition.

Ekurhuleni has already shown how blurred these lines can become. The DA helped the city pass its budget after extracting concessions, even while describing the administration as a failing ANC led coalition. It was not a coalition agreement, but it showed that political cooperation does not require parties to share executive positions.

The elections also offer the GNU parties an opportunity to honour an overlooked commitment in their founding statement of intent: “stabilising local government, effective cooperative governance.”

This matters because the credibility of the GNU cannot be separated from municipal performance. National reforms will mean little if the cities responsible for development approvals, water, electricity, roads and revenue collection continue to deteriorate.

The metros control enormous budgets, employ thousands of people and oversee the infrastructure on which the urban economy depends.

Johannesburg alone accounts for about 15% of national GDP. In July, the National Treasury temporarily withheld equitable share transfers from Johannesburg and 68 other municipalities because they had failed to meet financial obligations and properly address unlawful expenditure. Across all municipalities, irregular expenditure reached R40.14 billion in the 2024 to 2025 financial year.

Coalition negotiations determine who controls procurement, infrastructure spending and valuable municipal land. They affect whether businesses receive electricity, developers obtain approvals and cities can collect revenue or service their debt.

Billions in public and private capital will be needed to reverse urban decline. Johannesburg wants private investors to help reclaim derelict and hijacked buildings in the city centre and turn them into safe residential, commercial and mixed use properties.

Similar partnerships will be required to repair water systems, increase electricity capacity, improve transport networks and regenerate declining business districts.

Private investors will not commit that capital if mayors and finance committee chairs can be removed every few months. Urban renewal also cannot succeed if billing systems collapse, planning applications remain trapped in bureaucracy and criminal syndicates influence municipal administration.

Business therefore wants at municipal level what it initially welcomed nationally: stability, credible financial management and a broad political centre capable of making decisions.

The “least bad option”, however, cannot mean preserving ANC power regardless of how decisively voters reject its municipal record. A grand coalition that merely divides positions and procurement between the two largest parties would reproduce the political protectionism that voters tried to end.

Any agreement between the ANC and DA would require strict conditions. These should include a public coalition contract, professional appointments, measurable service delivery targets, protection for officials who enforce financial rules and automatic consequences for corruption or missed targets.

The political cost to the DA would nevertheless be substantial, particularly among black middle class voters it needs to attract.

These voters may be alienated from ANC corruption and administrative failure without being natural DA supporters. The GNU gives the DA an opportunity to demonstrate competence in national government, but it also blurs the alternative the party offers them.

The DA must prove that cooperation is conditional, productive and directed towards reform. It needs visible achievements, clear limits and a convincing account of how it intends eventually to replace the ANC rather than remain its permanent junior partner.

November will therefore determine more than who runs Johannesburg, Tshwane and other contested councils. It will show whether the GNU’s promise to stabilise local government can be translated into functioning cities, and whether the national coalition was an exceptional compromise or the foundation of a new governing establishment.

If cooperation with the ANC is sometimes the DA’s least bad option, it must say so honestly and explain the conditions. Otherwise, Zille’s old warning will acquire a damaging new meaning. The shortest route back to the ANC government may run not through a small party, but through the DA itself.

Zukile Majova and Rob Rose will discuss whether cooperation between the DA and ANC could extend into South Africa’s major cities after the local elections in this week’s episode of Sharp Sharp, the politics and business podcast from Scrolla and the Financial Mail.

Pictured above: Helen Zille. 

Image source: @Our_DA/X