Patriotic Alliance takes 2026 local election campaign to Mangaung stadium
Gayton McKenzie delivers the keynote address in Bloemfontein as the party unveils its local government election manifesto.
The Patriotic Alliance brought its 2026 Local Government Election campaign to Bloemfontein on Saturday, gathering supporters at the Dr Petrus Molemela Stadium in Mangaung for a manifesto launch addressed by party leader Gayton McKenzie.
As SABC News reported on 26 September, the party’s deputy president, Kenny Kunene, said the PA is focused on delivering basic services, creating job opportunities and fighting irregular migration. SABC News reporter Ntlantla Kgatlhane covered the event for the broadcaster.
Mangaung is the metropolitan municipality that includes Bloemfontein, the judicial capital and the seat of the Free State provincial government. It is one of South Africa’s eight metropolitan councils, which means it runs its own water, electricity distribution, refuse collection and roads rather than falling under a district municipality. That makes it a significant prize in any local government election and a hard test of any party that wins it.
The metro has been under Section 139 administration, the constitutional provision that allows a provincial government to intervene in a municipality that cannot meet its obligations. For residents, the practical consequences of local government show up in the basics: whether the water comes on, whether the lights stay on, whether refuse is collected and whether a pothole gets fixed. Those are the issues the PA says it is campaigning on.
The manifesto launch is the formal step at which a party sets out what it would do if it won control of a council. The 2026 local government elections will decide the councils that run South Africa’s cities, towns and districts for the next five years.
The PA is contesting the election as a smaller party seeking to grow its share of council seats. Kunene’s three stated priorities, basic services, job opportunities and irregular migration, place the party’s campaign squarely on the delivery questions that dominate local elections and on a national policy area that municipalities do not control directly. Immigration is administered by the national Department of Home Affairs, while the South African Police Service is responsible for enforcing the law. No party or crowd may enforce immigration law, because that authority belongs to the state.
For voters in Mangaung, the election will be decided on the record of the current council, the promises of the challengers and the capacity of whoever wins to run a metro with a large budget and a long list of infrastructure problems.
The PA’s campaign now moves on from its manifesto launch toward the election itself.
