However, the political maneuvering began long ago, with parties already jostling to retain and reclaim electoral ground. The official announcement of the election date will be done by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) in due course, following consultations with relevant stakeholders. With the five-year term of the current councillors, elected on 1 November 2021, set to end on 2 November 2025, the upcoming polls pose critical questions. What do these elections truly mean for voters, service delivery, councillors, municipal officials, and political parties?

Voters

Local government elections are an important opportunity for voters to measure the performance of councillors and political parties. Many councillors will seek reelection while a new crop of local leaders will also vie for their council seats. Decentralisation, through which local governments are created and empowered, is based on the assumption that councillors will be primarily accountable to their communities. This ties ward councillors to their wards. As for proportional representation (PR) councillors, it can be argued that since they are elected based on a party list they account to the party before the local communities. However, they are also there to serve local communities. Whether voting for a ward councillor or for the party, in case of PR councillors, voters will decide, based on the kind of municipalities they want. At the ballot box, will voters prioritise good performance over party allegiance? While these two are not mutually exclusive, this election presents an important moment for citizens to shape the future of their municipalities.

Service delivery

The primary role of municipalities is to provide services to communities. This requires that all structures in municipality, whether council or administration, work closely and cooperate. The run-up to elections is a time of uncertainty. Critical decisions are delayed or simply not made, and the necessary political commitment wanes. This is why politics so often disrupts the smooth functioning of municipalities. We should therefore not be surprised to see a slowdown in many areas of service delivery as the elections approach. This is why it is important to disentangle politics from the delivery of services. 

Municipalities, in their rules and orders, often provide for ways in which the senior municipal management can take decisions to keep service delivery going when the council is in recess or is unable to meet for any other reason such as an impending general local election. These mechanisms will be crucial to facilitate service delivery leading up to and immediately after these general elections when councils will not be able to meet and take decisions because councillors are campaigning. These mechanisms, however, leave ample room for the misuse or abuse of power for personal or political gain. A strong call must therefore be made for the responsible exercise of any “interim” powers.

Municipal officials

The election season sends a shiver through the corridors of municipal administration. Municipal managers are particularly vulnerable given that they are appointed on a fixed term basis. The removal of municipal managers is common during the election term but is even more common following a general election.  The law is partially to blame in that it generally ties the term of contracts of municipal managers to the term of the council. The law anticipates that each new council, after general elections, will (re-)appoint its own municipal manager. Hence, the common practice in local government that a new political regime, especially with a different political composition, often comes with a new municipal manager. Sometimes, the chopping and changing affects the entire senior municipal management. With little to no job security, municipal managers are often forced to “dance to the political tune” to save their positions after the elections. This scenario presents a significant challenge to effective and impartial municipal administration. The call to give municipal managers more security of employment should be understood from this point of view.

Councillors

The political environment is becoming more and more diverse. A tough battle is clearly set to ensue across many communities and political parties for the councillor's seat. The current challenges faced by municipalities requires those that are driven by the desire to serve to occupy the position of a councillor. How many of them will serve as councillors after the general elections?

Tragically, councillors and candidates have lost their lives in the past due to political killings, a grim testament to how the position is often viewed not just as public service, but as a gateway to power and resources. Will the upcoming elections be any different?

COGTA’s Discussion Document on the Review of the White Paper on Local Government identifies South Africa’s failure to retain a substantial number of serving councillors after a general election as one of the challenges confronting local government. In each election there is an increased number of “new” councillors. This has both benefits and pitfalls. On the positive side, it means that “new” councillors may bring fresh energy to governance and service delivery. On the other hand, institutional memory is lost, same as the resources spent in training councillors.

Lastly, the job of a councillor is demanding and requires a capable individual to occupy it. Questions continued to be raised about the calibre of councillors. The onus is now on political parties to nominate capable and high-performing individuals as candidates. The same can be said for communities when it comes to independent candidates.

Political parties

The IEC's announcement that 34 new political parties have been registered since the 2024 general election brings the total number to a staggering 472. This political diversity comes with both advantages and disadvantages.  On a positive note, it means that voters have a large base of political parties and candidates to choose from. Some argue that this proliferation signals the end of one-party domination and the birth of a maturing democracy. On the other hand, the proliferation of political parties may make stable local government even more difficult achieve. The 2021 local elections produced 66 hung councils. The current term of local government has been characterised by turmoil in many of these hung councils, including some of the big cities. Many coalitions failed to last, leading to instability and service delivery failures

King makers have not been hesitant to jump the “coalition ship” when it suits them. The instability prompted the government to embark on legislative reform process which has culminated in so-called “Coalition Bill”. Among other things, the Bill seeks to introduce electoral thresholds to reduce the number of political parties on the council with the hope this will stabilise councils. More broadly, the Government has embarked on a bigger process of reviewing the 1998 White Paper on Local Government, which is expected to be followed by a series of legislative reforms to reshape local government and the multilevel governance system, at large. It is unclear how this broad reform process will impact, if any, on the upcoming local government elections.

Conclusion

The upcoming local government elections offer voters a critical opportunity to hold councillors and political parties accountable. The central question remains: will good performance be rewarded and bad performance punished, or will political allegiance have the final say? For municipalities to perform better, councils must be constituted by capable, professional, and ethical leaders. The time to make the “right” choice is upon us. Once the new councils are in place, their immediate priority must be on delivering services and development to communities, but this will only happen if they are stable. It is, therefore, urgent that the government fast-track the legislative reforms aimed at stabilizing municipalities and ensuring they can serve their people. The Local Government Bulletin will follow the local government general elections closely with incisive articles on important developments.

By Tinashe Carlton Chigwata