WATCH | ANC’s 2026 election manifesto launch

ANC supporters arrive and gather in Riverside, Diepsloot, Johannesburg, ahead of the party’s Manifesto Launch and the November polls.Video: Thabo Tshabalala pic.twitter.com/x7BjEIXV3S— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) August 23, 2026

ANCWL representing at the ANC Manifesto Launch 2026 in Riverside, Diepsloot, Johannesburg. (Antonio Muchave) Supporters gather at the ANC Manifesto Launch 2026 in Riverside, Diepsloot, Johannesburg. (Antonio Muchave) Jovial mood at the ANC Manifesto Launch 2026 in Riverside, Diepsloot, Johannesburg. (Antonio Muchave) ANC Manifesto Launch 2026 in Riverside, Diepsloot, Johannesburg. (Antonio Muchave) Why the ANC U-turned on announcing its mayoral candidatesAugust 23 at 12am

The ANC raised eyebrows this weekend when it abandoned its plan to announce its mayoral candidates, apparently over fears of infighting during its toughest election campaign yet.

After weeks of interviews conducted by its top officials and national executive committee (NEC) members, the party at the 11th hour reneged on its plan to publicly announce the candidates it had selected to compete for the mayoral chains of 257 municipalities, including the country’s eight metros.

The ANC is mulling a fundamental overhaul of the country’s municipalities, including a possible merger of Gauteng’s three metros into a “megatropolis”.

The party’s first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane says the structures and boundaries of some of the existing municipalities need to be reviewed, as they may no longer be viable. She said the review would be one of the key topics of discussion when the party holds its national policy conference soon after this year’s local government elections.

If the ANC has its way after the November 4 local government elections, most tenderpreneurs at the municipal level will be hit hard in the pocket.

The party plans to directly hire workers to render services such as waste collection, security, cleaning, meter reading and water tankering — after years of dithering on the issue while tenderpreneurs raked in millions, exploiting vulnerable contract workers as they coined it.

This is according to the ANC’s 2026 local government elections manifesto, titled “Masakhe: Let Us Build”, prepared before what is expected to be the most fiercely contested local government elections since the dawn of democracy.

The ANC wants the almost 30-million South Africans who receive social grants to be automatically added to the indigent list of people who receive free basic services.

Instead of applying to receive free water, electricity and sanitation services every year, the party is promising that the database used by the South African Social Security Agency to pay grants will be used by municipalities to automatically add recipients to the list of households eligible to receive free basic services.

This is contained in the ANC’s election manifesto, which party president Cyril Ramaphosa will officially launch on Sunday under the theme “Masakhe”, loosely translated as “Let us Build”.