On November 1, 2021, South Africans head to the polls to elect candidates for district, local and metropolitan municipalities in the country’s nine provinces. As it stands, 325 political parties are contesting and more than 60,000 candidates will be fielded for the elections. These unprecedented numbers are testament to the widespread dissatisfaction with South Africa’s ruling and opposition parties, chiefly the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance. Until the last elections, in 2016, the ANC comfortably controlled all but one of South Africa’s big cities, Cape Town. But from 2016 when the DA won narrow majorities in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Gqeberha, the ANC lost power and parties like South Africa’s third-largest, the Economic Freedom Fighters, became coalition kingmakers. With poor service delivery, corruption and maladministration persisting against the wider backdrop of skyrocketing unemployment and inequality, many South Africans are disenchanted with the mainstream, with July’s unrest only deepening widening sentiment that South Africa’s political class is more concerned with preserving power than serving their constituents.

With political space more open than ever, South Africa’s progressive left is taking its chances too. After the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party’s humiliation at the 2019 general election following a rushed campaign (it amassed only 25,000 votes, below the threshold required to obtain at least one seat in Parliament), South Africa’s left was once again roaming in the political wilderness, ever more weary of the electoral road to social transformation (The SRWP decided it would sit these elections out). However, with social crises accumulating and grassroots activists on the frontline, it has become difficult to ignore local government as a key site of political contestation and struggle.

Amandla! interviewed representatives of three popular organisations that have decided to stand candidates in the local government elections. They are:

• Peter Lobese from Active United Front and former Mayor of Bitou Municipality on the southeastern coast of the Western Cape province.
• Motsi Khokhoma from Botshabelo Unemployed Movement
• Ayanda Kota from Unemployed People’s Movement / Makana Citizens Front

The three organisations are collectively running under the banner of the Cry of the Xcluded, a popular front launched in 2020 by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and the Assembly of the Unemployed (AoU) to unite South Africa’s working class—employed and unemployed—in the struggle for jobs, services, and dignity. Their election manifesto can be read here.