Malema takes EFF manifesto to Nelson Mandela Bay as parties enter final month before 4 November polls
The EFF leader is campaigning in Gqeberha on service delivery, with the metro among the country's most closely watched battlegrounds.
Julius Malema is taking the Economic Freedom Fighters’ local government manifesto into Nelson Mandela Bay, with service delivery the focus of the party’s campaign ahead of the 4 November municipal elections.
As SABC News reported on 3 October, the EFF leader is campaigning in the Eastern Cape metro and the party is highlighting service delivery among the issues it is putting to voters. SABC News reporter Sisipho Ngcumbe was reporting from Gqeberha.
The timing matters. South Africa’s municipal elections fall on 4 November, which leaves the parties roughly a month of campaigning. For voters in Nelson Mandela Bay, that month is the last stretch before they decide who runs the metro that delivers their water, their electricity, their refuse collection and their rates bills.
Nelson Mandela Bay is the country’s fifth-largest metro by population and one of the eight metropolitan municipalities that carry the heaviest weight in local government. It is also a metro that has changed hands more than once. It has been run by the ANC, by a DA-led coalition, and by a series of coalition arrangements that have shifted between elections. That record is part of why the metro draws national attention each cycle: what happens in Gqeberha is often read as a signal for how coalition politics is settling across the country.
For residents, the campaign’s central subject is not abstract. Municipal failures show up as taps that run dry, streetlights that stay off, rubbish that is not collected and bills that arrive for services that were never delivered. Service delivery is the language voters in this metro use for those experiences, and it is the ground on which every party, including the EFF, is being measured.
The EFF’s decision to bring its manifesto into the metro is a contest for that ground. The party is a national opposition force with a base among younger voters and a record of campaigning on land, housing, electricity and municipal accountability. Whether that translates into council seats in Nelson Mandela Bay will be decided on 4 November, along with the rest of the country’s municipal councils.
What the campaign looks like on the ground, and what the party’s specific manifesto commitments for the metro are, will emerge as the campaign continues. What is already clear is the shape of the month ahead: national leaders in the metros, service delivery as the recurring theme, and voters in Nelson Mandela Bay deciding what they make of it.
Source: SABC News, 2026 Municipal Polls | EFF targets service delivery concerns in Nelson Mandela Bay
