By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
ActionSA has outlined a bold and focused election strategy for the 2026 local government elections following a three-day strategic planning meeting.
The party held three-day Senate strategic planning meeting on Saturday in Johannesburg.
ActionSA president Herman Mashaba said the discussions focused on a central question: how to take the party’s message directly to South Africans frustrated by failing municipalities, deteriorating infrastructure, corruption, rising living costs and lawlessness.
“At the centre of these discussions was a simple but urgent question: how do we take a campaign directly to South Africans who are tired of failing municipalities, deteriorating infrastructure, corruption, the rising cost of living and lawlessness?” Mashaba said.
He added that the Senate reaffirmed ActionSA’s commitment to offering a clear break from what he described as the “politics of self-interest”.
“ActionSA was founded to break from the failed politics of established political parties, and we remain guided by a simple principle – that South Africans must come first in every decision we take,” he said.
Mashaba said the party’s campaign would be built from the ground up, focusing on community issues while aggressively tackling the collapse of basic services, crime, drug abuse and unemployment.
ActionSA has experience a significant decline in electoral support following its peak in the 2021 local government elections, particularly in the 2024 national and provincial elections, where its support plummeted to 1.2% countrywide.
In the 2021 local elections, ActionSA attracted a healthy 296 345 votes in Johannesburg. That 16.05% translated to 44 out of 270 council seats. Mashaba’s party did not win any wards.