Minority Front fields 67 candidates as water and roads dominate 2026 local election campaign

The Minority Front will contest the 2026 local government elections with 67 candidates across KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Cape Town, returning to the ballot after sitting out the 2024 national and provincial elections.

The party’s candidates filed their nominations ahead of the Electoral Commission’s certification of 136,790 candidates for the municipal poll, in which voters will elect representatives to metropolitan, district and local councils.

As IOL reported on 18 September, the party’s slate includes business owners, community activists, a software developer, a former healthcare worker and people with backgrounds in social development. What the list shows is a party rebuilding from the ground up after a two-year absence from the ballot, and doing it in the wards where the everyday failures of local government are felt first.

Water first, and roads second

The concerns the candidates name are the ones that dominate municipal switchboards across the country. In Avoca Hills, businessman Edwin Cole Chetty, 28, is contesting Wards 24, 39 and 110 and points to water interruptions and the condition of local roads. In Johannesburg, Dhineshan Moodley, 49, who runs an IT consulting company and is standing in Ward 132 in Waterfall, Midrand and Kyalami, lists water interruptions, traffic problems linked to stolen power cables, and incorrect municipal billing and meter readings.

In Tongaat, software developer Adisri Koblall, 31, is contesting Ward 62, covering the town centre, Hambanati, Vanrova and Fairbreeze. She grew up in the area and says burst pipes and slow municipal responses to reported faults are the issues residents raise with her. Her ward is one of several where infrastructure maintenance has lagged behind the pace of new housing.

The pattern is not unique to these wards. Water interruptions, cable theft and potholes are the three complaints that recur most often in municipal customer service data nationally, and they are the issues that local councillors have the most direct power to escalate.

A former health worker in Pietermaritzburg

In Pietermaritzburg, Sandya Siviathan, 50, a former public healthcare worker from Northdale, is contesting Ward 28, covering Bombay Heights, Northdale, Belfort and New Holmes. She spent more than two decades in the provincial health system and says the COVID-19 pandemic pushed her toward formal politics. Her priority is the shortage of medication at provincial hospitals, an issue she says residents raise with her directly.

Siviathan’s candidacy reflects a broader trend in this election cycle. Healthcare workers, teachers and community activists are entering local politics in larger numbers than in previous municipal polls, drawn by the sense that national debate has crowded out the ward-level work that determines whether a clinic has medicine and a street has water.

The party’s return

The Minority Front says it is contesting the 2026 elections after not participating in the 2024 national and provincial elections, citing financial constraints at the time. The party has historically drawn support from Indian South African voters in KwaZulu-Natal, particularly in the Chatsworth, Phoenix and Tongaat areas, and its return to the ballot will test whether that base remains intact after a two-year absence.

Its stated focus is local government and community-level issues, a positioning that matches the ward-level concerns its candidates are raising. In Chatsworth, brand strategist Rolanda Pillay, 47, is contesting Wards 69, 64, 33 and 32 in Bayview, Havenside and Mobeni Heights, and names youth education as her first priority. In Phoenix, Feroja Cassim, 51, is contesting Ward 49 in Eastbury, Longcroft and Rydalvale, and raises the circumstances of retail workers who lack proper break rooms, along with support for families caring for children with special needs and the elderly.

In Tshwane, Manuel Moodley, 39, a logistics manager, is the party’s mayoral candidate. He names crime, service delivery and gender-based violence as his priorities, and says his first action if elected would be to engage communities directly on the problems they face.

What happens next

Candidates are now in the campaign period ahead of the municipal poll. The Electoral Commission has certified the candidate list, and voters will elect representatives across metropolitan, district and local municipalities. The date of the election will be proclaimed by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, and the IEC will publish the final timetable once that proclamation is gazetted.

Source: IOL, Minority Front candidates put service delivery and community needs at centre of election campaigns.