On Wednesday South Africans elect the people who decide whether your tap runs, your bin gets collected and your street light works. This weekend the four biggest parties made their last big pitch for that job. Listen back to the speeches and you would struggle to know it.
The DA talked about 2029. The ANC talked about opinion polls and “Mickey Mouse parties”. The MK Party talked about the government of national unity and its leader’s health. The EFF, to its credit, spent the most time on how municipalities actually fail, and then had to spend part of its rally explaining a chant.
Saturday: Mamelodi and Soweto
At Moretele Park in Mamelodi, DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis asked South Africans to “make the DA the biggest party in this election” and called the contest “a two-horse race for first place in South Africa”, according to Daily Maverick’s round-up of the final rallies. He told supporters the vote was “the beginning of a journey to a DA-led national government in 2029”, and led the crowd in “Stop the chaos! Start delivery!” (SABC News).
The delivery promises were there: competent appointments, fighting corruption, fixing infrastructure. He also warned voters off smaller parties, arguing they could let the ANC back in through coalitions. That is a fair tactical point. It is also an admission that coalitions are coming, and that the DA would rather you did not think too hard about the deals it may need to make on Thursday morning.
Across the city at Orlando Stadium, Julius Malema went straight at the machinery of local government. He blamed contractors and corrupt officials who have “turned local government finances into their personal bank accounts”, and said: “For them, broken infrastructure is not a problem. It is a form of income.” The EFF promised fewer tenders, in-sourced artisans, 24-hour clinics and a crackdown on hijacked buildings.
That is the closest any of the four came to a municipal manifesto from a stage. It was delivered in Soweto, as Daily Maverick notes, amid water outages across parts of Johannesburg and refuse left uncollected because of strikes. Malema also used the rally to say “Kill the boer, kill the farmer” was “never meant in a literal sense” and that farm killings must stop. Whether that line was for the crowd or for audiences overseas is a fair question for another day.
Sunday: Mdantsane and KwaMashu
In Mdantsane, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the ANC’s Siyanqoba rally that the people saying the party is “on a downward spiral” would be proved wrong. IOL reports he dismissed the polls in isiXhosa: “There are those who think they are educated, who tell us about surveys that show them the ANC will collapse; there is no truth to that.” He called the other parties “Mickey Mouse parties”.
He did concede: “Yes, we have had shortcomings.” He pointed to more than 500 days without load shedding, and said councillors who fail to perform would be removed. The plans and budgets exist, he said, and “our councillors must go and implement”. That is exactly the question voters are answering, and “we have the plans” is not an answer to it.
In KwaMashu, Jacob Zuma made his first public appearance since being in hospital from 6 to 17 October. “Thank you, I am back,” he told supporters at Princess Magogo Stadium, according to IOL. He sang, he danced, and he renewed his call for black South Africans to reclaim ancestral land: “We are going to start by taking back our country here.”
Daily Maverick reports he attacked the GNU and said “We will fight until we end the GNU.” It also reports, bluntly, that “Zuma did not go into the MK party’s election promises.” For a party asking to run municipalities, that is a striking gap.
What Wednesday is actually for
Here is the part none of the stages dwelt on. You do not vote for a mayor on Wednesday. You vote for a ward councillor and for a party list, and outside the metros for a district council too. Councillors then elect the mayor. If no party has a majority, the parties have to agree on one.
Daily Maverick explains that once the IEC declares the result, councils must be set up within 14 calendar days. If the pollsters are right, Daily Maverick writes, coalitions will dominate across the country’s councils, including most of the eight metros. That is two weeks for parties that spent the weekend insulting each other to agree on who runs your water budget.
So when you mark your ballots, the question is not who drew the biggest crowd or who has the best plan for 2029. It is simpler and harder than that:
- Which ward candidate will actually answer a call about a burst pipe?
- Which party has said, in plain terms, who it will and will not govern with?
- Who has a record, not a slogan, on paying contractors honestly and fixing what breaks?
The rallies are done. Campaigning legally ends at midnight on Tuesday. Your tap does not care who won the crowd count.
Special voting runs today and tomorrow from 08:00 to 17:00. Voting on Wednesday runs from 07:00 to 21:00. Check your station by WhatsApp on 0600 88 0000.