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The scale of it
257Municipalities
4,488Wards
~29mRegistered voters
How to read this
Everything in a party's plan is a plain-language summary of what that party says, taken from its published manifesto, manifesto launch or public campaign statements. It is not a fact-check, a rating, or an endorsement. Where a party hasn't published a 2026 municipal manifesto yet, the page says so rather than guessing — check back as launches happen.
Manifesto launch dates
EFF — 25 July 2026, Thohoyandou. DA — 8 August 2026, Newtown, Johannesburg. ANC — 23 August 2026, Diepsloot, Johannesburg. BOSA — published September 2026. FF+ — 12 September 2026, Pretoria East. IFP — 20 September 2026, KwaMashu, Durban. ActionSA — 26 September 2026, Johannesburg. PA — 26 September 2026, Mangaung. MK Party has published “The People’s Mandate”, its 2026 local-government manifesto, with targets for the first 100 days, 1,000 days and five years. RISE Mzansi has published “Our plan to make your municipality work”, its local-government election plan, with detailed Johannesburg examples and commitments for coalition agreements.
Mayoral candidates
"Confirmed" means the party has formally announced the person. "Reported" means credible reporting names them but the party hasn't announced — this covers most ANC candidates, since the party has not formally announced its full metro slate. Compiled from Business Day ↗, The Citizen ↗ and TimesLIVE ↗, with the RISE Mzansi and BOSA candidates from Inside Metros ↗, SABC News ↗ and EWN ↗. The MK Party's slate has since changed: Zandile Hlophe-Mkhwanazi was removed in eThekwini ↗, while Nkele Matime was named for Tshwane ↗. The IFP has also named Mkhuleko Hlengwa in eThekwini ↗. RISE Mzansi and GOOD are running joint candidates in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Cape Town under a cooperation agreement, so those names appear on this page under RISE Mzansi. Remember South Africans don't vote for a mayor directly — you vote for a ward councillor and a party, and the new council elects the mayor.
FF+ candidates were checked against the party's Gauteng announcement ↗, its Cape Town announcement ↗ and independent reporting on Bill Harington in Nelson Mandela Bay ↗. No verified FF+ metro candidate announcement was found for eThekwini, Buffalo City or Mangaung.
Candidate bios
Ages appear only where a date of birth was confirmed against a reliable source — eight of the fifty-one named candidates at the time of writing. Everyone else shows "Not verified" rather than an estimate, because a wrong age on a voter information site is worse than a blank one. Gender is shown only where reporting makes it explicit. Bios are drawn from parliamentary records, party announcements and news reporting.
Reading the documents yourself
Where a party has published a manifesto, its plan links straight to it. The ANC's PDF is 24.1 MB, the FF+ document is 9.9 MB, ActionSA's is 6.0 MB, the DA's is 2.5 MB, MK Party's is 2.3 MB, RISE Mzansi's is 2.2 MB and BOSA's is 0.3 MB — worth knowing if you're on mobile data. Independent analysis of the manifestos is being published by Daily Maverick's Manifesto Test series ↗, which checks promises against each party's actual record in government.
Election results: sources & limitations
Results come from the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), using the public data feeds behind the official IEC local government election results dashboard ↗. Each results panel links to the underlying IEC data for its selected area and year. The 2021 metro results are a saved copy of the IEC archive; ward and voting district results for 2021 and 2026, and metro results for 2026, are requested from the IEC when you view them. Map boundaries also come from the IEC for the selected election year; the base map uses OpenStreetMap ↗.
Updates and provisional results. The 2026 results are treated as provisional until declared by the IEC. The site checks for updates about once a minute while the relevant results tab is open and the page is visible; this does not mean the IEC publishes new figures every minute. “IEC report” is the source’s report time; “Checked” or “Last refreshed” records our successful retrieval, not a new count. Brief caching and source delays can affect freshness. If an update fails, the page warns you and may keep the last successfully loaded figures. Missing results mean data is unavailable, not that a party received no votes. Use the IEC dashboard to verify the latest official position.
What the numbers mean. Combined vote totals and shares include ward and proportional representation (PR) ballots. They count ballots, not individual voters, and must not be read as voter turnout. Ward and voting district views do not provide separate ward/PR ballot breakdowns, turnout or registered-voter totals. Vote shares follow the IEC’s published figures and rounding, so they may not add up to exactly 100%. The 2021 metro archive retains the IEC’s OTHER and IND groupings; any difference between listed party votes and the archive’s valid-ballot total is flagged in the relevant panel.
Seats, maps and comparisons. Council seat charts show IEC allocations, not projections; unallocated seats are not predicted. A party leading in combined votes is not necessarily the ward seat winner. Historical results and ward representative records describe that election, not current officeholders or coalition membership, and do not incorporate subsequent by-elections. Boundaries and ward numbers can change between elections, so the same ward number in 2021 and 2026 does not necessarily cover the same area.
Independent presentation. Votersguide.co.za organises and explains the IEC data but does not count votes, certify results or independently audit the count. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the IEC or any political party. If figures here differ from the IEC’s latest published results, rely on the IEC and check the area, election year and report time using the source links above.
Photographs
Leader portraits are added by the site owner from sources licensed for reuse — Wikimedia Commons ↗ and GroundUp Images ↗. Photographer and licence are credited under each party's plan.
Sources
Party manifesto launches and campaign statements as reported by SAnews, the IEC, EWN, News24, Daily Maverick, Business Day, TimesLIVE, The Citizen, SABC News, Africa Check and the parties' own websites, August–September 2026. Published documents include the MK Party’s 2026 “The People’s Mandate”. Links appear inside each party's plan.
Independent civic explainer. Not affiliated with the IEC or any political party. Party colours are approximate brand colours, used for recognition only. Election date proclaimed by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs on 7 August 2026.