Your ward councillor cannot fix the pothole, and the ballot box is where the answer sits

Local government elections are set for Wednesday, 4 November 2026, and the state of the municipalities voters will pass judgement on is mixed, sometimes inside the same city.

Thembelani Mazibuko, a researcher in the coalitions programme at the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), told SAnews (South African Government News Agency) that some neighbourhoods get efficient services and quick answers to complaints while others, particularly poorer township communities, get a slower experience of the very same municipality.

“So that is why I say, the state of local government is mixed,” he said.

Mazibuko ties the gap to money. Municipalities with strong economies and a strong rates base, among them the City of Johannesburg, eThekwini, Cape Town and City of Tshwane, generally perform better than rural municipalities with few businesses and lower household rates. He said the shadow of apartheid still looms, with municipalities in the former homelands continuing to struggle, and cited the Eastern Cape, home to the former Ciskei and Transkei, as a province still carrying that legacy. Gauteng and the Western Cape, which have no former homelands, generally have stronger economies and institutions feeding their rates base.

For voters unsure what they are actually choosing, Mazibuko set out the structure. South Africa has three spheres of government. Local government runs the services people meet every day, provincial government generally provides healthcare, education and community services, and national government handles national issues. Municipalities come in three categories: eight Category A metropolitan municipalities, Category B local municipalities, and Category C district municipalities that typically cover between five and nine local municipalities and provide district-wide services including bulk sanitation.

He said that distinction is widely muddled, and named immigration as the clearest example. Local government does not deal with immigration, he said, yet the conflation of the spheres spreads misinformation and disinformation among voters.

The ward councillor is the other role he says is badly misunderstood. Councillors do not carry out municipal services themselves and do not personally fix potholes. They take residents’ concerns to the right structures inside the municipality and are expected to escalate complaints to the officials responsible. A municipality overwhelmed by complaints, or one that fails to act, does not automatically mean the councillor neglected the job, provided the concern was escalated. Councillors also set up ward committees of up to 10 people as a channel for community concerns, which makes them the first point of contact for residents navigating municipal structures.

Mazibuko said attention to local elections has grown since 2016, which he links to increasing political fragmentation and contestation at local level, and to South Africans and the media paying closer attention. Turnout has not followed. The 2021 local government elections saw turnout drop to 45.86%, and he pointed to the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and to voting arrangements that required people to vote at the station where they were registered rather than anywhere in their municipality. Some voters may have been turned away under those arrangements.

Given South Africa’s history, he argued that voting arrangements should not place unnecessary restrictions on citizens, and that same-day voter registration is one reform the National Assembly could consider. He pointed to 1994, when people turned out with their ID books and the election was free and fair, and said South Africans are a highly mobile population who move for work. He credited the Electoral Commission with integrating technology through the voter management device and online registration checks, but cautioned against online voting because of the risk of hacking.

Young people remain a concern. Mazibuko noted that the youth generally vote at lower rates than other age groups, and offered one reason: people in their early to mid-20s have had fewer opportunities to register and vote than those in their 40s, who have been through more registration periods. Whether young voters turn out in greater numbers remains to be seen.

His advice to undecided voters is to read party manifestos and test whether a party’s priorities match the needs of the community. He also pushed back on the idea that ideology has little place in local government, arguing that it informs government at every level and that the choice on the ballot is about more than a name.

After the vote, Mazibuko expects more hung councils, where no party wins an outright majority, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng and in parts of Mpumalanga, the Free State, the Northern Cape and the southern Eastern Cape. That would mean more coalition governments and negotiations that can drag on, especially over who becomes mayor, with legislation requiring the first council meeting within 14 days of the results.

He said frequent changes of mayor have raised questions about coalitions and service delivery, but pointed out that services are delivered by officials, including city managers, divisional heads and unit heads, who stay in place while parties negotiate. The Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, 2026, known as the Coalition Bill, seeks to introduce a clear legislative framework for forming and running coalitions. According to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, it aims to move coalitions from informal political arrangements towards a regulated governance mechanism that promotes stability and accountability. Coalition agreements would have to be in writing, submitted to the municipal manager and the MEC responsible for local government, and published in the Provincial Gazette, and the Bill seeks to strengthen municipal leadership by requiring office bearers and committee chairpersons to have the appropriate skills, experience or qualifications. Mazibuko said the proposed legislation remains at an early stage and needs further work.

As campaigning moves onto WhatsApp, X and Facebook, he urged voters to watch for misinformation and disinformation. The Electoral Commission’s Electoral Code of Conduct on Countering Disinformation defines disinformation as false or misleading information shared by someone who knows it is untrue, or has no reasonable basis for believing it, with the intention of misleading voters or disrupting the election. Misinformation is false information shared without that intent, often because someone did not check first.

“So much of our communication is through WhatsApp. Political information particularly, is over WhatsApp, X, Facebook, and these are easier to infiltrate in terms of bad actors who want to spread mis and disinformation. This is an issue the IEC is seized with,” he said.

The Commission recently entered a partnership with Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and the non-profit Moxii Africa to protect the integrity of election information ahead of the polls. The ballot, Mazibuko’s argument runs, is where residents get to decide who speaks for them when the decisions about refuse collection and burst pipes are made.