Electoral Roadshow: Wayne Sussman - Lifestyle audits for ANC councillors ahead of 2026 elections

With a critical round of by-elections coming up next week, the African National Congress (ANC) has announced that all candidates for 2026 Local Government Elections will have to undergo criminal record and qualifications vetting, submit interest declarations, and consent to lifestyle audits. This is lauded by Elections Analyst Wayne Sussman on the latest edition of the Electoral Roadshow with Chris Steyn. Sussens gives in-depth previews of the most important upcoming by-elections, including the straight two-horse race between the Democratice Alliance (DA) and the ANC in City of Joburg Ward 90 where President Cyril Ramaphosa lives; the turbulence amid which MKP has to contest Mandeni where Umkhonto we Sizwe won over 70% of the vote in 2024 in the historic ANC stronghold; Kouga where the DA ward councillor walked over to the Patriotic Alliance; and Hantam where the local councillor was assassinated. As for the possible date of next year’s Local Government elections, Sussman reveals that he is hearing from reliable sources that it will either be held on 4th or the 11th of November.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.663)South Africa is facing a critical round of by-elections next week. Join me on the Electoral Road Show with analyst Wayne Sussman. Welcome, Wayne. Wayne Sussman (00:14.242)Thank you Chris, great to always speak to you. Chris Steyn (00:17.535)Before I ask you to preview those by-elections, I'd like to talk about the African National Congress announcement that all candidates for 2026 local government elections will have to undergo criminal record and qualification vetting, Chris Steyn (00:39.231), submit interest declarations and consent to lifestyle audits. Wayne Sussman (00:51.982)Yeah, this is very ambitious by the African National Congress and should be applauded that they are taking these steps. One, because you want to make sure that it is the right thing to do, that your public representatives are upstanding people, are ethical people, and that they will do the job which the public voters are going to elect them to do next year in the local government elections. But also it is just right for the ANC because what you do not want in the lead-up to an election is candidate after candidate to be embroiled in a scandal, to embroiled for their criminal records possibly to come up. And I think Fikile Mbalula and the ANC are doing the right thing here because we know - and we've discussed this before on BizNews - that we see far more violence traditionally in the lead-up to a local government election than in a national election because there is such contestation and competition for positions. So by the ANC doing this, they creating another barrier to entry, another box, important box to tick. And I think hopefully for their case, from Luthuli House's standing point, they will be able to recruit better candidates, recruit candidates who can advance the party's cause in the next elections. Because we know, as you saw, the last major election in 2024 and the last local government election in 2021, the ANC has to do everything it can to turn its rapid slide around and hopefully, for their case, win back lost voters. Chris Steyn (02:43.828)Okay, let's go to next week's by elections. Shall we start with Gauteng? Wayne Sussman (02:49.922)Well, let's start in South Africa's smallest province, but most populous province, about just under one quarter of our voters live in this tiny strip of land called Gauteng. We have two by-elections. And the one where I wonder whether Cyril Ramaphosa will be hoping for a post-G20 boost is Ward 90, which is, I understand that President Ramaphosa lives, I think, in Ward 90 in Sandhurst. So it's Sandhurst, Dunkeld, Craigall Park, Hyde Park, a real suburban seat. And this is an interesting point, Chris. We had a by-election recently, and we discussed it here, where it was in Noordgesig, Diepkloof, and Soweto. You had 12 candidates on the ballot. So much contestation. There are only two candidates on the ballot in this by-election. And this is the next Johannesburg by-election. So you're going from 12 candidates competing in one ward to two in this other Johannesburg ward. This is a DA stronghold. The DA will want to win big. And I believe we should be seeing Helen Zille campaigning because I think this is the platform, the by-election platform for her to launch or let's say relaunch her campaign to be the Mayor next year. So that's a straight…two-horse race between the DA and the ANC. And then we go to a part of Gauteng called Khutsong in nearby Carltonville, gold mining country in the Merafong municipality. Here, this is an ANC stronghold. We know that Gauteng, by the way, is the most competitive province, but the two wards are actually...probably the least competitive wards in this round of by-elections. When we think of mining, we think of turbulence in that sector, we think of parties on the Left maybe making inroads, but this particular part of Khutsong is an ANC stronghold, strong Setswana-speaking area right by the Northwest border. Are we gonna see the EFF and MK and a few others make inroads? I think ActionSA is in the ballot here, but again, Wayne Sussman (05:05.838)The DA will be hoping to win big in this Johannesburg ward and the ANC will be hoping its supporters come out and put some…. Chris Steyn (05:13.035)Now there's a very critical by-election coming up in KZN. Wayne Sussman (05:19.426)That is correct. So the last few weeks have been very challenging weeks, even for the Umkhonto we Sizwe party, even the most dyed-in-the-wool Umkhonto we Sizwe supporter, someone who might even have a Jacob Zuma tattoo, would have to admit that their beloved party is not in a good way, in a good shape. We are going to the Mandeni municipality which is, if I remember correctly, the Tugela River flows out into the ocean. This ward typifies how brilliantly MK did in 2024. When I look at the voting districts in this ward and I tabulate it, Umkhonto we Sizwe won over 70 % of the vote here. This is an historic ANC stronghold. I want to repeat that number: Umkhonto we Sizwe won over 70% of the vote. Surely they have to win the seat next week. You can't tell me that less than 18 months after the last election that things have gone so south for Umkhonto we Sizwe that they cannot retain the majority support in an area where over 70% of the people voted for them. So there's one...key fact, just I want to throw in one piece of data here. We have had one by-election in this municipality. And again, this is where, this is a ward where they won 71%. This is a few, few months ago and they won the ward with only 41%. So that's like a benchmark for them. Similar numbers didn't do as well, but at least they can show their supporters that they won the ward. For Jacob Zuma, for all the people around him, Wednesday, Mandenu municipality, you can turn your narrative around if you win that seat. And I believe, judging on the 2024 data, Umkhonto we Sizwe should take the seat off the ANC. And if they don't, there's a lot to be worried about..Read more:.Defections, domination, dates - and Des van Rooyen: The Electoral Road Show with Wayne Sussman.Chris Steyn (07:32.159)What about the Eastern Cape? There are three bi-elections coming up. Wayne Sussman (07:37.476)Yeah, as we know, the Eastern Cape is a very large province and in large swathes of that province, there's only one game in town and that's the African National Congress. Now, interestingly enough, all three by-elections in the Eastern Cape are taking place in the SaraBaartman district, which is the Western part of the Eastern Cape. And essentially, the DA and the PA do well, do the best in the Eastern Cape in Nelson Mandela Bay, which is right next to the Sara Baartma District… So what I want to say is that this is not your typical Eastern Cape district. So there's three wards, and one of them is a real fascinating seat. It's in Kouga, which is basically Jefferies Bay. And this ward is three different parts of Jefferies Bay. Why are we having the by-election? The DA ward councillor walked over to, you guessed it, the Patriotic Alliance. Now the PA will be hoping that they can win its first seat off the DA in the Eastern Cape in Kouga. But the ANC are also strong here. So this, you're going to see there's a part, and I'm sure you've had some BizNews viewers there, Aston Bay, that's a DA stronghold in this ward. Then there's Pelsrus, which is a majority-Coloured area. And you've got the DA who's strong in some parts, the PA growing, the ANC have a base, and then an area called Tokyo Sexwale which is an ANC stronghold. This is going to be a real humdinger. And I know that a lot of the DA cabinet ministers have campaigned here and that Gayton McKenzie is campaigning here. Then we move over to an area where the PA have already won a seat. That's the we've discussed this part of the Eastern Cape on the show before. It's the Kou-Kamma municipality. And we know that a few weeks ago, the PA won a seat off the ANC. They'll be hoping to do it again to win another seat off the ANC. This is in the Langkloof area, a big farming country. And this is in the small area of Louterwater and Joubertina. I expect the PA, if they are going to win a seat next week, this is where they're most likely to do so. And then finally, Wayne Sussman (09:59.445)On paper, there shouldn't be a contest, but we know that Makana, which is Makanda, formerly Grahamstown, is an area where the ANC has done very well inside Sara Baartman. But that municipality has been plagued by dysfunctionality, by service delivery collapse, corruption. And we know how important it is. This is a town where...one of the high courts in the Eastern Cape is, Rhodes University, the National Arts Festival, big farming around there. This is a key municipality. Yes, we expect the ANC to hold the seat, but there's a party, the Makana Citizens Front, which did very well here last time, and then parties like the EFF, and DA, PA, also on the ballot. Can they make inroads in this key municipality? So that's the Eastern Cape next week. Chris Steyn (10:47.883)Up to the Northern Cape. Wayne Sussman (10:51.233)Saving our largest province in the country, but our province with the least amount of people for last. We start in the Siyancuma municipality, which is around Douglas. We know that the DA recently won a war of an Independent there. This is an ANC seat, and you're to see the ANC versus the DA versus the PA. Can the PA make inroads in this part of the Northern Cape? It's an area called Breipaal. And can the ANC hold the seat? You know that one of the Northern Cape, generally, I know there's been one or two exceptions, but generally the Northern Cape, the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, the ANC does very well. The ANC will want to make sure it wins this for the big majority. But the DA with the base there, the PA making inroads, it's going to be an interesting race. And then we go, and I'm getting hungry just thinking about this part of South Africa, to the Hantam municipality, to Anthony Sher’s hometown, famous Boerboel breeding country, a small town or Middelpos. This is a tragic by-election. The ward councillor was assassinated there. I think they're still trying to work out how he died. I understand he was burnt in a house, something like that. Horrible story. But this is an area with many voting stations and only 1,300 or 1,400 registered voters. The ANC won the seat off the DA because they fielded a very charismatic candidate ran a good campaign. And here you can see the ANC, the DA, the Freedom Front are quite strong here, and the PA go for it. The ANC will want to win those two seats well. It's also important for Zamani Saul, the Premier of the ANC, he’ll be eyeing a bigger position for the ANC in the next major National ANC Conference. Can the ANC win those two seats? Can the PA further establish themselves? Can the DA recapture its mojo? Just to remind people, the Northern Cape, but I mean, I know I just said that they won a, the DA won a by-election recently, but the DA generally struggles in the Northern Cape. Chris Steyn (13:03.403)Wayne, what have you heard about the date for next year's elections? Wayne Sussman (13:08.142)Yeah, this is a very key date. It will help us plan our year. I know we're winding down to the end, not just of the electoral year, but the end of 2025. And we need to start putting in dates in our diary for 2026. So the dates I'm hearing from reliable...sources is the 4th of November or the 11th of November are two dates. Remember, the way the date gets chosen is the IEC consults the President and crucially in this case, the Minister of Cooperative Governance, which remember is no longer some from the ANC, it's Velenkosini Hlabisa, the leader of the IFP. But I do think that President Ramaphosa, even though my understanding is that the Minister of Cooperative Governance will inform the IEC of the date, that ultimately Ramaphosa, President Ramaphosa, loom large in that decision. But I think the IEC's recommendation is, it counts for a lot. And I think they don't want to do it in December. It makes perfect sense. It's not really fair to do it in December. It's not just South Africans going away on holiday, but people going home to be with their families. A lot of South Africans do that. January, people starting new jobs, schools opening, people moving maybe to a new school, people moving to a new tertiary institution, political parties need to also have a break, even though we might be cynical about them. So I think we've got to look strong. You remember the last date was, I think it was the 2nd of November 2021 or the 1st of November. I can't remember the exact date. So the 4th of November is in that. And it makes sense. The one thing is...here is university exams. And we know that South Africa's universities and tertiary institutions have different exam dates. I think the fourth or the 11th of those dates are the fairest because university students are likely still to be in residence, even though some of them might be writing exams. So let's focus on fourth or the 11th of November as those possible dates. Chris Steyn (15:17.941)Thank you, Wayne. So I'm looking forward to discussing the results of next week's by elections with you on the Electoral Road Show. That was Wayne Sussman, Elections Analystl with me, Chris Steyn. Thank you, Wayne. Wayne Sussman (15:33.241)Thank you.

Electoral Roadshow: Wayne Sussman - Lifestyle audits for ANC councillors ahead of 2026 elections

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