South Africans head to the polls in November amid collapsing municipalities, broken trust and rampant corruption. The choice is stark: leaders who deliver water, electricity and sanitation — or elites who loot public coffers while towns and cities decay.

By THAPELO MOHAPI

South Africans will go to the polls in November to vote in the 2026 Local Government Elections. The election will be held in a time of deep hopelessness and broken trust, a time of great difficulty for ordinary people.

Collapse of basic services

Local government cannot deal with issues like mass unemployment. Local government cannot emancipate the people, for that we need to build popular democratic power. But local government is supposed to provide basic services and manage public infrastructure. Yet, as we all know, after 30 years of democracy, the most basic promise of local government — to deliver water, electricity, sanitation, refuse removal — has collapsed in municipality after municipality. Instead of services, communities are being given excuses, lies, debt, and corruption.

Local government was supposed to be ‘the coal face of delivery’. It has become something else, a site of mass looting and theft from the people. In town after town and city after city we are ruled by thieves and gangsters. The results are all too clear as towns and cities collapse into filth and decay.

Corruption and looting

According to Statistics South Africa’s General Household Survey 2024 and the Auditor‑General’s MFMA 2023/24 report, only 39 of 257 municipalities received a clean audit. 105 municipalities received disclaimed or adverse opinions — meaning their financial statements were unreliable. R90.3 billion in irregular expenditure was reported by municipalities in 2023/24 alone. A shocking 44% of municipal drinking water systems are at high or critical risk of failure, according to the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Blue Drop 2023 report.

Non‑revenue water losses sit at 46%. Sanitation remains in crisis and 3.2 million households still use bucket toilets or have no sanitation facility at all. Eskom ‘load‑reduction’ and municipal debt have left over 10 million people experiencing regular blackouts. Many municipalities are technically insolvent due to unpaid Eskom bills. In metros like Johannesburg, waste collection has collapsed in large parts of the city, with reports of months without service in shack settlements.

Communities paying the price

The result is what we see every day: blocked sewage running in the streets, taps that have been dry for weeks, potholes that destroy cars, and waste that is not collected. The City of Johannesburg was once the dream for every young graduate. Today it is a collapsing city. In the suburbs potholes go unfilled for years, traffic lights don’t work and waste piles up. In the shack settlements, conditions are simply inhumane.

But Johannesburg is not alone. From eThekwini to Mangaung, from Nelson Mandela Bay to Buffalo City, the story is the same. The local state can no longer perform its most basic functions because it has been captured by a corrupt political class.

Most South Africans have stopped voting out of loyalty to the past. In fact most South Africans have stopped voting at all. But we must vote, and we must vote for survival in the present and for building a future. We must reject leaders who see elections as “their turn to eat”. We must reject leaders who use public office to enrich themselves, their families, their girlfriends, and their political factions.

Call for accountable leadership

We have seen this firsthand. In eThekwini Municipality, some communities have gone two weeks without water. Instead of deploying emergency water, municipal officials have been accused of selling water from tankers to those who can pay, while delivering to siblings and girlfriends. When a man was recently run over by a water tanker, it was not a surprise. It was the outcome of a system where even desperation is monetized.

We need selfless leaders. Leaders who were running soup kitchens and ECDs before there was a campaign. Leaders who have been helping communities from their own pockets. Young leaders who are frustrated by years of corruption and are yearning to take responsibility. Leaders who will be on the ground as councillors and as mayors, not only during elections.

We respect and honour those who fought apartheid. But honouring that struggle does not mean rolling out the red carpet for people who claim its history forever. It does not mean giving a blank cheque to leaders who use the liberation name to shield corruption.

We cannot put our future on hold. Young people have suffered for too long. If we do not take over politics now, we will inherit a country of potholes, dry taps, dark streets, and empty promises. The older generation will be gone, and we will be left to clean up the mess.

This November, we must vote for:

Competence over connections

Accountability over impunity

Delivery over rhetoric

Leaders who serve the poor first

Genuine democracy

Our towns and cities are in serious crisis. The election in November must be understood as an emergency intervention. We must get rid of thieves. We must put people who care about society into power.

The women of 1956 marched for a country that works for all. The least we can do in 2026 is vote for leaders who will make our towns and cities function.

Our vote is an important line of defence against the thieves. Let us use it wisely.

Aluta Continua. TQ

About the author: Thapelo Mohapi is a South African community activist and writer known for his outspoken advocacy on social justice, grassroots democracy and service delivery. He serves as the secretary‑general of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a movement representing shack‑dwellers and the urban poor