In the months before a local government election, something shifts in how candidates engage with the wards they hope to represent. Doors that have stayed closed for four years are knocked on. Promises that no one was making last year are made freely. Once the votes are counted, and the winning candidate starts earning a salary, their engagement fades to almost nothing. And, as most of us know and have experience, most of them will not be back until the next election approaches.
Local Government Election 2026 — a moment of community power
The Community Manifestos initiative starts from a simple observation. In the weeks before an election, candidates need votes more than any resident needs any candidate. It is the only moment in five years when the balance of power tips toward the people living in a ward – the one moment during which a community can set the terms of its relationship with its councillor, rather than wait to be told what those terms will be. A community manifesto is potentially what an organised community can do in that moment to take power back.
The political system we enjoy does not favour community power. Most councillors are deployed by their parties, often into wards they have no connection to. Once elected, their loyalty runs upward – to party leadership and municipal management – rather than to the people they are meant to serve. Fewer residents believe their ballot will change anything. Voter turnout has fallen from 58 per cent in 2000 to 46 per cent in 2021. What people see in their wards day to day gives them little reason to disagree with those who have stopped voting.
The 2026 elections present a particular opportunity. The political landscape is more competitive than it has been in a generation, with coalitions common and independent candidates standing in growing numbers. In many wards the margin between winning and losing is small, and an organised, informed community has real power.
What is a community manifesto?
A community manifesto rests on three things. The first is the priorities the ward agrees through a structured, broad-reaching process – water, sanitation, housing, safety, roads, or whatever residents themselves identify as urgent. The second is the standards expected of the councillor, for example: living in the ward, being contactable, communicating honestly, declaring financial interests, and treating every resident with the same respect. The third is the accountability practices required once that councillor is elected: regular public report-back meetings, written progress reports, an independent oversight group, a written commitment to step down if they clearly break the compact, and anything else the community considers reasonable.
Once the manifesto is finalised, every candidate standing for the ward is invited to a public event at which they are asked to sign a compact committing to its priorities, standards, and accountability practices. The signing event is public on purpose. Its power comes not only from the signature but from how visibly organised the ward is and how broad the process behind the document was. Candidates who refuse to sign do so openly, in front of the residents whose votes they are asking for. In a competitive ward where people are organised and paying attention, refusing to sign can be a costly position.
How a community manifesto is built
The Community Manifesto process is designed to fit the rhythms of community life rather than disrupt them. The work can run over roughly three months, in five steps, and depends on what most community formations already have: organised people, communication channels, and a willingness to follow through. It does not require outside consultants or significant new funding. What it does require is coordination, time, and the patience to do each step properly.
Step one — organising and spreading the word.
A coordinator within the community formation makes contact with the local groups already at work in the area (for example, residents’ associations, faith communities, advice offices, sports clubs, street committees) and brings them into the conversation. Notices go out through WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages, community noticeboards, and word of mouth at gatherings residents already attend. The aim is to reach as many people living in the ward as possible, so that every household has a fair chance of hearing that the process is under way and can take part if they choose to.
Step two — a survey across the whole ward.
This is the step that the credibility of the whole exercise depends on. The survey could be done in two ways at once: an online form distributed through social media, and door-to-door visits conducted by trained community members. Both routes are necessary, because the door-to-door route is what reaches the residents who cannot otherwise show up — pensioners, residents without internet access, and those for whom a large public meeting is not a comfortable place to speak. It also provides a point of connection, building a more human engagement. The questions are simple: what are the biggest problems in this ward, what should be expected of a councillor, and how should that councillor account to residents? Every household reached strengthens the manifesto. Every household missed weakens it.
Step three — sharing the findings back.
Survey results are taken to the community through open meetings and through smaller, focused discussions with the groups whose voices are easily missed in larger gatherings. The intention is not to present a finished manifesto but to test, refine, and settle on the priorities and standards that will go into one. This is the step at which the document moves from being the work of a coordinator to being the work of the ward.
Step four — drafting and circulating.
A small drafting team writes the manifesto, drawing on the survey, the meetings, and any existing community charter, constitution, or earlier consultations. The draft is shared widely before it is finalised so that residents can suggest changes. The credibility of the document is built in this step as much as in the survey. The more people who have had genuine input, the harder it becomes for any candidate to dismiss the manifesto as the view of a small group.
Step five — the public signing event.
All candidates standing for the ward are invited to a public town hall meeting at which the manifesto is presented and they are asked to sign the compact in full view of the community. This must happen before the formal election campaign begins. In the weeks before the campaign, an organised community with specific written demands has the most power — and the most ability to shape what candidates have to commit to in order to be taken seriously as leaders.
What needs to happen now
The hardest part of the process, in practice, is reaching the residents who are routinely left out. Pensioners, women, young people, residents without internet access, those who do not usually attend public meetings — whether their views are in the manifesto is what gives it real authority. This is also the part of the process most often shortened under time pressure, and it is worth resisting that pressure. A manifesto that genuinely represents the ward is one a candidate cannot easily refuse to sign.
Three months is enough time. It is also not very much time. The work that needs to happen now is the easiest to begin: identifying the coordinator, mapping the local structures already in place, agreeing the lines of communication, and drawing up the survey. Everything else depends on those early decisions. The window will not stay open, and the work to use it must begin before the campaigning does.
* The manifestos work sits inside two larger programmes that frame and support it. The first is the work of My Vote Counts through the Democracy from Below – Civic Formations Collaboration for People’s Power 2026, where the manifesto initiative is one of several instruments for shifting power back to communities. The second is the ACT Ubumbano Accountability Project, whose ground-level community conversations have provided much of the lived evidence on which the manifesto template now rests. The two programmes are complementary: the civic formations collaboration provides the political framing and the link to a potential wider movement for a Right to Recall in South African law, with the Accountability Project providing the empirical foundation – what residents in real wards actually say they need from a councillor, and what they would accept as a minimum standard of accountability.
May 2026
