Carl Niehaus and Sam Matiase.
By Sam Matiase and Carl Niehaus
South Africa’s municipalities are collapsing. Water does not flow. Sewage runs in the streets. Roads are impassable. Electricity is unreliable. Refuse piles up. Corruption has become routine. Unemployment and despair deepen every year.
This is not an abstract crisis. It is the lived reality of millions of ordinary people who have waited more than three decades for the promise of democracy to reach their homes, their clinics, their streets and their dignity.
The 2026 local government elections are therefore not ordinary elections. They are a decisive moment. The Economic Freedom Fighters have named this moment with uncompromising clarity: Victory or Death.
