EFF, ActionSA advocate for combined elections to save billions of rand

Political parties are calling for the realignment of national and local government elections to contain excessive costs of running elections.

The parties said the elections are very expensive and cost billions of rand. They expressed that they cannot afford to spend such an amount every two and a half years.

The EFF reignited the debate on the cost of managing elections, pointing out that forking out more than a billion rand each time there is an election undermines the fairness of the process. The EFF suggested that the elections should be aligned, and Action SA said they would support such a call as it could save the party and the country billions of rand.

EFF deputy president Godrich Gardee said the elections have been an expensive exercise for the party, suggesting the need for local and national government elections to be aligned to allow parties to contest economically.

“Every two years, you are subjecting us to trauma. For example, in 2024, the EFF spent a billion rand on the elections alone. That 2024 was for national and provincial elections. Two and a half years later, you are taking us to other elections, another R1 billion. And after the local government elections in November 2026, we will face another national election in 2029, costing another billion rand. What kind of expensive democracy are you subjecting us to? Are you not able to tell the government that this is just impossible?

This is why political parties and politicians may resort to corruption to finance this democracy over such a short period.”

ActionSA president Herman Mashaba said they would support the idea of aligning elections, as the country could save billions in the process. “Action SA would like to see both local government elections, provincial, and national elections held together after years. The country itself will save billions by combining these elections, allowing direct savings to improve our country's infrastructure. Combining these elections will have no impact on credibility,” he said.

Makashule Gana of Rise Mzansi said it is not the frequency of elections that is the problem; “it is how best we ensure that South Africans support democracy and ensure the best people are elected.

“There are countries like the USA that have elections for Congress (National Elections) every two years; it works because it has been normalised for the citizens/voters to donate to political parties. We should normalise South Africans donating to political parties in the same way we have normalised offering in churches. The same should go for charities and NGOs supporting the work of democracy.”

Karabo Khakhau of the DA, however, expressed concerns about figures mentioned by the EFF. “We are shocked that the EFF spent R1 billion on an election as the declarations of donations to political parties do not show even a fraction of that. It shows that there are parties with huge amounts of funding that are not being declared, and this is very disturbing. It means that parties like the EFF are not complying with the law while the DA is 100% compliant.

“We think the IEC needs to now investigate EFF party funding to protect our democracy.”

Responding to the concerns of the EFF at the meeting, James Aphane, the General Manager for Electoral Matters at the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), said the concerns around having elections every two and a half years were valid.

“Those things are managed by law. We can support that debate as the IEC because it will make sense. But the lawmakers must come and make the determination. So the parliamentarians must come out to say we are not using money effectively."

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