Check you're registered →
You can only vote at the station where you're registered. IEC online check.
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 manifesto launch or its 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 not announced a launch date. RISE Mzansi is campaigning on city-by-city plans instead of a single national municipal manifesto.
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 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.
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. 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.