19 October 2026
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Story Prof Sethulego Matebesi
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Photo Supplied
Prof Sethulego Matebesi, Department of Sociology, University of the Free State
Opinion article by Prof Sethulego Matebesi, Department of Sociology, University of the Free State
Picture a quiet office on the afternoon of 28 August. A screen glows with hundreds of names, the work of months of branch meetings, factional bargaining and deposits paid. One small button sits unpressed in the corner. Nobody looks at it; the clock reaches five, and a liberation movement’s candidate quietly slips off the ballot in six municipalities.
The African National Congress (ANC) was not alone. Forty-four other parties sat behind identical unpressed buttons in offices across the country. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has since extended the effect of the Constitutional Court ruling and directive regarding the ANC candidate list submission to 32 parties that faced the same predicament. Meanwhile, 13 others remain excluded for failing to comply with the candidate submission requirements.
That is the picture behind South Africa’s pre-election period, one in which celebrities became mayoral candidates, an alliance is at a crossroads, a song is going viral, and a piece of software almost decided who could stand.
A family at breaking point: Old habits meeting new systems
For three decades, the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) have governed as a political family, with one table, one head and one set of house rules.
Those are the old habits, and they are now colliding with new systems.
The first is a ballot that lets a ‘junior’ partner stand against the ‘senior’ one: the SACP has chosen to contest the elections under its own name, a decision the ANC’s secretary general described as a conflict of interest. The ANC answered in the old way, with a 10-day ultimatum requiring dual members to declare their loyalties.
The second is a federation that no longer takes orders. COSATU’s congress collapsed in September over who was entitled to attend. When it reconvened in October, it allowed members to campaign for any party they chose, abandoning its ANC-only approach. When a dominant party can no longer command its partners, loyalty has become conditional.
The third is the digital portal, where habits formed on paper met a button that does not forgive. Having pledged under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance to hold inclusive, transparent elections, the Constitutional Court’s order matters well beyond the ANC. For democracy, it affirms that a voter’s right to choose outweighs an unpressed button, and for the IEC, future nomination rules will need to be clearer and better signposted.
Fame and politics of the viral: Nangu Mlungu
Every election season, parties are in the market to ‘buy’ votes. It is the one currency every citizen holds in equal measure. A billionaire and a pensioner each get one, and parties spend heavily on it, with posters, songs, rallies, promises and famous faces. But to sustain its performative culture, politics continually borrows glamour.
During this election season, several well-known figures are now standing as candidates themselves, rather than only lending their faces to campaigns, including in mayoral races. The logic is understandable, since name recognition is expensive to buy.
But a stern warning is that a famous face can open a door, but only credible party leaders can ensure manifesto pledges translate into tangible realities for voters.
In a pre-election season that has felt more like a shrug than a surge, the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) has been the unexpected beneficiary of the politics of the viral with a tune that campaigns on its own. Nangu Mlungu, an AI-generated Afrikaans and Zulu song meaning “Here is the white man”, has Pieter Groenewald, the FF Plus’s former leader and now Minister of Correctional Services, as its subject. It spread on TikTok, and commentators noted that it has caught the eye of young back musicians.
While virality should not be mistaken for votes, the episode shows political effect being produced outside party structures, by anonymous creators and recommender algorithms, rewarding a figure that no conventional campaign had positioned for township audiences.
Spend your vote, don’t save it
Taken together, these events describe a system in transition: a fracturing former governing alliance, a loosening link between race and party, and a politics increasingly mediated by platforms and interfaces. In Antonio Gramsci’s phrase, “the old is dying, and the new cannot yet be born”, and the morbid symptoms are visible in a congress hall, a TikTok feed, and a submission portal.
Whether 4 November confirms a durable realignment or only a turbulent coalition era, the municipal polls have become the arena in which South Africa’s post-liberation settlement is being renegotiated.
Voting through the ballot is the currency that funds it all. An unspent vote buys nothing and leaves the bargaining to those who did spend theirs. The ballot is only the upload. Governance is the submission, and the confirmation is what citizens feel when the tap runs.
Spend your vote and spend it wisely!
Prof Sethulego Matebesi is Acting Deputy Dean: Research and Postgraduate Studies in the Faculty: The Humanities, University of the Free State. He writes in his personal capacity.