IEC Launches 2026 Local Election Preparations With 'Get Up, Show Up, Vote' Campaign Targeting Youth

IEC Launches 2026 Local Election Preparations With 'Get Up, Show Up, Vote' Campaign Targeting Youth

JOHANNESBURG, 4 April 2026. The Electoral Commission of South Africa formally launched its preparations for the 2026/27 Local Government Elections on Saturday, unveiling the campaign logo and tagline "Get Up, Show Up, Vote" at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand and calling on young South Africans in particular to register and participate in what will be the country's most consequential sub-national election since the advent of democracy in 1994.

IEC Chairperson Mosotho Moepya said the campaign branding had been designed specifically to attract the youth vote, citing the disproportionate share of young South Africans who remain unregistered or disengaged from electoral processes. The commission said it was recruiting and training more than 70,000 employees to assist with a voter registration weekend scheduled for 20 and 21 June 2026, the last opportunity for eligible citizens to ensure their details are on the voter's roll before the election period.

The elections are scheduled to take place between 2 November 2026 and 1 February 2027, following an announcement by the Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, in November 2025. The IEC said it had been conducting continuous outreach since the announcement, including at student campuses and community venues across all nine provinces, and that 260,205 new voter registrations had been recorded between November 2025 and March 2026, with nearly half completed through the commission's online self-registration portal.

The 2026 local elections carry exceptional political weight. The African National Congress enters the contest having lost its parliamentary majority in the May 2024 national election and is seeking to limit further losses at the local level, particularly in major metropolitan municipalities where it has already ceded control in some areas. The South African Communist Party will contest the elections independently for the first time in post-apartheid history, splitting the Tripartite Alliance's electoral machinery, while new and smaller parties including ActionSA, whose members had been joining the Democratic Alliance, were expected to reshape ward-level competition in key municipalities.

The Democratic Alliance, preparing for its own federal congress and leadership transition from John Steenhuisen to the incoming leader to be elected in April, was targeting additional metropolitan majority support. The MK Party, having demonstrated significant voter uptake in KwaZulu-Natal in the 2024 national election, was expected to contest aggressively in provincial wards.

South Africa holds local government elections every five years. The 2021 elections were held in November of that year.