By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South African Communist Party (SACP) General Secretary Solly Mapaila confirmed the party has submitted its candidate lists to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Friday, 29 August 2026.
Mapaila was briefing the media on Sunday, 30 August 2026, as the party prepares to contest the election for the first time as an independent organisation, against its Tripartite Alliance partner, the African National Congress (ANC).
He confirmed the party is fielding more than 4000 candidates for the election.
“The SACP is fielding 4,418 ward candidates across the country. In the same vein, we are contesting proportional councillor seats countrywide. The lists include community candidates who are not necessarily SACP members.”
Mapaila confirmed the party remains part of the alliance while it exercises ‘political independence’.
“The SACP has not walked away from the alliance, but firmly remains part of it while pursuing its reconfiguration. Like all alliance partners, we are exercising our political, ideological, and organisational independence,” he said.
He said the party had spent more than two decades pushing for the reconfiguration of the alliance without achieving what it regarded as meaningful progress.
“Our independent electoral contest is not a withdrawal from the alliance, the NDR, or the struggle for socialism. It is an exercise of our democratic and organisational independence and forms part of the struggle to rebuild working-class political representation and secure the reconfiguration of the alliance,” he said.
Among its manifesto priorities is the creation of “municipalities free from tender corruption and capture”, alongside reliable public services, decent work, land, housing, food security and accountable councillors.
“We will use our election contest to strengthen our campaign against the corrupt tender system, privatisation and unnecessary outsourcing of government functions, including in this case at the municipal level,” Mapaila said.
“The SACP is calling for an insourcing and capable, democratic and properly funded people’s municipalities with adequate resourcing and equipping of municipal workers, participatory planning, local production and public representatives accountable to communities,” he added.
The party argues that rebuilding state capacity is essential to improving service delivery and reducing dependence on private contractors.
Mapaila said the SACP’s broader economic programme was rooted in reversing de-industrialisation, which it blamed for worsening unemployment and poverty.
According to Statistics South Africa’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey figures cited by the party, the official unemployment rate rose to 33.6% in the second quarter of 2026, with 8.5 million people unemployed.
Meanwhile African National Congress (ANC) President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged residents of Hammanskraal to vote for the party in the upcoming Local Government Elections.
The president has been on the campaign trail in Gauteng this weekend.
Ramaphosa said the ANC aims to restore service delivery disparities affecting townships in the Tshwane municipal area since the party lost its majority in the municipal council.
Elsewhere the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) launched its 2026 local government elections manifesto on August 29, 2026, at the Soweto Amphitheatre under the banner “Secure the Land, Empower the People”.
The party aims to fix decaying municipal infrastructure, dry taps, and erratic electricity by shifting local government from basic service providers to platforms for sustainable livelihoods.
PAC president Mzwanele Nyhontso said many of South Africa’s municipalities are “wallowing in a state of utter hopelessness”.
It is a common feature of many municipalities that their administrations are presiding over systematic decay.
“Taps that are running dry. Electricity is erratic at best, but in most cases is hardly available. Street lights that have stayed dark for the longest time,” he said.
The PAC announced Thami ka Plaatjie as its mayoral candidate for Johannesburg. Ka Plaatjie rejoined the PAC from the ANC.
The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Velenkosini Hlabisa has today, 07 August 2026, gazetted the date of the municipal elections scheduled to take place on 04 November 2026 as published in Government Gazette No. 55162.