Facing what may be its toughest local government election battle yet, the ANC has decided to look beyond its own ranks in its search for mayoral candidates across the county’s metros and municipalities.
The move follows the party’s bruising performance in the 2024 national elections, when it fell below 50% for the first time since the advent of democracy and lost its outright majority.
On Wednesday, the party announced it had opened public nominations for the centralised selection of ANC mayoral candidates in the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities and 22 secondary cities and towns.
In a statement, the party said it wanted to turn to the people of South Africa and ask the country to participate directly in identifying those who will carry the responsibility of municipal leadership as mayors in the next term.
“This invitation is genuinely open to all. Any South African who is not a card-carrying member of the movement may nominate a fellow citizen of integrity and capacity through
the same portal and on the same terms as any member of the ANC,” read the statement.
“A South African who is not a member may also self-nominate and place his or her own name forward as a nominee for consideration. The door is extended first; the question of membership comes later, in line with Rule 4.16 of the ANC constitution and the resolution of the national working committee (NEC) and before any name is publicly announced.”
The party described this as “the deliberate intention of the movement. “The African National Congress belongs to the people of South Africa, in the spirit of the charter’s declaration that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.”
The ANC opened the process on Wednesday and the final cut-off for this intake is midnight on Friday 22 May 2026.
Each nominee will, at the appropriate stage of the process, sign procedural undertakings governing this selection and the pledge to serve better, in line with the resolution of the national executive committee.
Previously, winning a regional conference as party chairperson automatically secured that person the mayoral candidate nomination for that region.
That practice was later scrapped after the party identified it as a weakness, with concerns that some leaders elevated through internal elections were not always suitably qualified for senior executive roles.
The ANC subsequently introduced a new system requiring regional structures to submit three names for consideration. These candidates would then be interviewed by the party’s top seven officials, who would make the final selection. This process has now been revised again.
An ANC NEC member told the Mail & Guardian that the decision to involve the public was not taken by the NEC but rather rushed through by party officials.
The NEC member said the party should not impose regional or provincial leaders on communities, adding that sometimes regional and provincial leaders elect “donkeys” among themselves and impose them on communities.
The source said that in 2016, the ANC had tried to field candidates in regions where they were not grounded in their communities and the party lost elections in those municipalities.
It was important for the party to field candidates familiar to the community to garner support, the NEC member said, adding that those who emerge must be people who have struggled alongside the communities they want to lead.
“They brought Thoko Didiza in Tshwane; they brought Danny Jordaan in Nelson Mandela Bay but they did not appeal to the local communities. Every community has its own leaders.
“If you go to Johannesburg, it has its own role models, its own leaders and people who have emerged through the struggles of those communities,” the NEC member said.
“If you take someone who does not attend the same church as the community, participate in the same stokvels or belong to the same sports clubs and then expect them to lead, that person will be rejected by those communities.”
The source added that the ANC has to observe a process led by communities and then take decisions after hearing sentiments from local communities.
Johannesburg regional secretary Sasabona Manganye said the ANC’s process of selecting candidates had changed over the last two elections.
Manganye said that the party had always allowed the public to comment on and make recommendations regarding policy, manifestos, and, in the last two elections, candidate selection.
Manganye said the ANC is an organisation of the people, not only of its members and there was nothing inappropriate about allowing society to provide input on who should be the party’s mayoral candidates.
“You cannot lead society without considering its views. Mayors do not lead the ANC; they lead the public. So, you cannot reduce that process only to the ANC and its structures and forget the very important people who will be led by such individuals.”
He said if a non-ANC card-carrying member was chosen as a mayoral candidate, they would be given an opportunity to join the party before the elections.
“The person who is successfully selected, if they are not already a member, will, as per the guidelines, be required to join the party. By the time of the election, that person will already be a member of the ANC. This simply means the candidate will be a member of the ANC at the end of the day.”
The ANC’s Ekurhuleni regional chairperson, Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, said there were many people who were not card-carrying members of the ANC but who worked harder for the party than some of those in leadership positions.
Xhakaza said it should also be appreciated that while the party has about one million members, it receives votes from millions more people.
“If your membership is one million and you get voted for by over six million, it means there are many more people who identify with the ANC, even if they are not card-carrying members for one reason or another.
“We have a lot of professionals who would like to serve but somehow they are not part of the membership system for one reason or another. Those people could be in the private or public sector and those circumstances could make it difficult for them to maintain active membership.
“The ANC is the only democratic organisation that goes through a process like that. We are not like Mr Herman Mashaba, where they wake up and hire a leader. I doubt Xolani Khumalo has ever chaired a programme of action over the years.”
Xhakaza said the ANC was born out of popular struggles in communities, adding that those applying for mayoral positions would not oppose the party’s policy positions but would instead strengthen them.
He added that, despite the previous culture in which being a branch chairperson automatically meant standing as a ward councillor, branches would still exercise their choice in selecting candidates before communities are allowed to make their own inputs.
“The risk is that we must appoint someone who will uphold the values and principles of the ANC Constitution and live by them because it is the structures of the ANC that must oversee the work of that candidate.
“That is the only area where there could be a risk, that once the person ascends to office, they may not fully subscribe to the programme of action because there is an ANC manifesto that they must sign to confirm that they will abide by it,” he said.
The ANC has opened mayoral nominations to the public, allowing non-members to apply or be nominated as it reshapes its candidate selection process ahead of the local elections
