Our current system of local government was established in 2000 as South Africa began its democratic reforms for local government that were polarised mainly on racial and ethnic differences.
Currently, the local government system comprises 257 municipalities. These are local, district and metropolitan municipalities as per the Constitutional provision.
These municipalities demonstrate different capacities, characteristics and resources which need to be considered accordingly in order to understand their demarcation positioning. Several critical interventions have been implemented from 2000 with intensive efforts to increase investment related to skills development, infrastructure improvements and local economic development activities to capacitate local government.
Despite all these, most of the municipalities remain struggling and unable to deliver on their constitutional mandate to provide basic services to their residents.
Over these many years, elections have been used as the main instrument for citizens to keep the system accountable, although with minimal success as many municipalities remain in a state of paralysis.
Local government elections
While South Africans are preparing for the seventh (if we include the 1995 elections during the transitional period) democratic elections, it appears that citizens have traded their souls with the devil.
Except for the reforms regarding public participation and electioneering processes, the local democracy process is largely unable to account for material benefits of improved service delivery, job creation and strong municipal institutions.
This means citizens are paying a heavy price for having regular elections that do not always help with delivery of basic and quality municipal services.
The spilling sewers, dirty streets and uncollected garbage, water shortages, poor municipal roads maintenance and financial mismanagement are among those that have become normalised in most of our municipalities.
In the same breath, municipal councils have become centrepieces for fracas instead of embodying good governance standards and holding mayors and their leadership teams accountable.
Since municipal councils are the highest decision making bodies, they should enforce discipline on their municipal administrative structures, if we are to run successful institutions that prioritise residents.
We do not want to see residents and voters only being remembered at the critical time of electioneering. This would help us mitigate a Faustian pact that serves to remember citizens at this stage when politicians need re-election to councils.
We should not raise hopes
South Africans should not raise their hopes too high regarding the 4 November 2026 local government elections outcomes.
There is sufficient information to help argue this point. For now, we can rely on some of the information contained in the audit reports from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) that show that despite regular elections over many years, municipal performance, service delivery and good governance remain pipe dreams for citizens.
The current Consolidated General Report on Local Government Audit Outcomes 2024/2025 highlight persistent audit outcomes and regressions which need to be addressed accordingly.
The OAG highlighted the following figures and pointers:
‘‘A total of 57% of municipalities maintained the same audit outcome status as in 2020-21 (the last year of the 5th administration), while 15% regressed, including certain municipalities — and metros, with clean audits. The regressed municipalities accounted for 24% of the total local government budget. Regressions should be a rare occurrence, particularly given the lack of significant changes in legislation and accounting and performance reporting requirements during this administration.’’
With the above situation, it is clear that the local government elections have served to mainly perpetuate and reinforce the status quo.
We have also seen during the recently approved revised White Paper on Local Government by the Cabinet that mainly cosmetic changes were considered rather than practical reforms necessary to help reposition local government to fulfil its constitutional obligation of improving its socio-economic mandate.
It is also in this case that perhaps voters should avoid raising their hopes.
While we all know that municipal councillors are sworn-in to be faithful to the Republic of South Africa and obedience to the Constitution, we need strategies to follow through accordingly.Such a practical intervention would serve voters as a classic case of a disconnect between politicians and their residents once elections are concluded.
This would help ensure that allegiance is neither paid to political parties nor their cronies but to voters. Reconciling this matter would help avoid a Faustian pact where desperate residents are pointed the other way when it is their turn to receive quality municipal services from their elected representatives.
But it is going to take the adapting role of the election management body to chart a new course for the local government system.
Why is IEC not adapting itself?
The political landscape has seen more political parties entering the fray, further polarising voters, in some cases even threatening stability of municipalities especially with the coalition arrangements in place.
Clearly, even democracy must have limits and it is the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) that needs to set those boundaries and parameters.
The IEC is an important Chapter 9 institution in our Constitution that cannot just be a political tool for processing electoral results and data without evolving to adjust its mandate to new socio-economic realities faced by voters. In its quest to adapt, the IEC could learn from the OAG.
For example, the OAG has since introduced laws that have adapted its mandate to enforce consequence management regarding public sector financial mismanagement through the application of Material Irregularity process. This is to ensure that the changing needs of public institutions are catered for. It is also in this case that IEC needs to find ways of implementing consequences management processes for political parties that are underperforming or unable to provide functioning municipal systems.
There are a range of instruments already available to help with such a task including reports from the OAG and Municipal audit committees. Therefore, it should be, for all intents and purposes, that the IEC remains the main catalyst to redeem itself from presiding over an existential Faustian pact that has become too costly for the Republic of South Africa, voters and its noble Constitution.
Professor Kedibone Phago is dean of the University of Mpumalanga’s Faculty of Economics, Development and Business Sciences. He previously served as professor and a director in the School of Government Studies, North West University. He holds a doctoral degree in Public Administration from the University of South Africa (Unisa). He writes in his personal capacity.