DA

Municipalities should keep the right to buy electricity from private power companies as well as from Eskom.

The 2026 manifesto says municipalities must be empowered to buy and sell electricity directly from private energy producers without waiting for national approval, and that contracts with private suppliers can deliver power faster. The 2024 manifesto and the 2021 manifesto say the same.

Unpaid household electricity debts should be collected, not cancelled.

The 2026 manifesto says the DA will enforce credit control firmly and cut off services for people who refuse to pay, because non-payment destroys municipal finances and honest residents end up carrying those who do not pay. Nothing in the party's documents supports writing off household electricity debt.

Eskom's older coal power stations should close on their planned dates.

The DA's 2024 manifesto wants to move away from reliance on Eskom's old coal stations, increase renewable energy and reach net zero emissions by diversifying the energy mix. In January 2024 its energy spokesperson criticised the draft IRP 2023 for delaying coal plant shutdowns while limiting renewable procurement, calling the plan a step backwards.

Where a municipality cannot keep the water running, it should hire a private company to run its water system.

The 2026 manifesto says that where municipalities lack the resources to build and maintain infrastructure the DA will enter into public-private partnerships, and that water service authorities and providers can be separated so that the municipality regulates while separate providers run supply and distribution. Municipalities keep the oversight role, but the running of the system can pass to a contracted operator.

The state should give a free house to every household that cannot afford to buy one, not only the poorest.

The DA's 2022 housing position paper says providing a serviced site with a free top structure is no longer sustainable and that housing should be driven by private initiative, self-build and serviced sites with government as enabler. Fully subsidised houses stay in the mix only for prioritised vulnerable households.

The law should make it quicker to remove people who have recently moved onto land without permission.

The 2026 manifesto promises tougher action on land invasions, penalties for people who organise them, municipal police able to respond promptly and a bill to amend the PIE Act. The DA's own 2023 PIE amendment bill (a different bill from the minister's 2026 one) would set criteria a court must apply before ordering alternative accommodation and let courts limit how long it must be provided, which makes lawful removals quicker and the accommodation duty narrower.

In some cases the state should be able to take land for housing or public use without paying the owner.

The DA voted against the constitutional amendment to allow expropriation without compensation on 7 December 2021 and against the Expropriation Bill in the National Assembly on 28 September 2022, calling nil compensation an attempt to amend the Constitution through the back door. In February 2025 it went to court to have the Expropriation Act set aside.

Provinces should be allowed to run their own police services that can investigate crime, alongside the national police.

The 2024 manifesto proposes decentralising policing so that capable provincial and metro governments manage their own police forces, while keeping a national police force. The 2026 manifesto commits to devolving policing powers and budgets to competent municipalities, and the 2021 manifesto promises to fight to devolve policing to provincial and local level.

Only South African citizens and permanent residents should be allowed to own spaza shops and other small township businesses.

The most recent direct statement found is from October 2020, when DA Gauteng MPL Makashule Gana said the party was deeply concerned by the Township Economic Development Bill because it reserved township businesses for citizens and permanent residents, and that the DA believes people should not be segregated by nationality. The 2026 manifesto does not address ownership by nationality, and no later DA statement reversing the 2020 position was found.

Foreign nationals without legal status should get only emergency care at public clinics and hospitals.

In an August 2025 statement the DA's health spokesperson said section 27 guarantees every individual access to healthcare whatever their nationality or country of origin, and that every sick person must be treated in public facilities to stop communicable diseases. That rejects limiting foreign nationals to emergency care.

Yearly increases to the national minimum wage should be no more than about the rate of inflation.

In September 2024 the DA said a national minimum wage increase would deepen unemployment and called for the current level to be held, proposing labour reforms and a youth employment certificate instead. The 2024 manifesto proposes a certificate letting young people work outside minimum wage constraints.

Labour laws should make it easier for businesses to hire and dismiss workers.

The 2024 manifesto proposes a Youth Employment Opportunity Certificate letting 18 to 35 year olds opt out of sectoral wage agreements for two years so that hiring them is easier, an overhaul of Labour Relations Act rules that deter hiring, and exempting small firms from extended bargaining council agreements.

Municipalities should employ their security guards, cleaners and other contract workers directly, rather than through contractors.

The 2026 manifesto favours outsourcing network management in district municipalities, waste PPPs where they cut costs and specialists on short-term contracts, with no commitment to insource contract workers. In Tshwane in February 2024 the DA caucus rejected an EFF demand to insource security guards and cleaners.

Unemployed adults should get a basic income grant well above the current R370 a month.

The 2024 manifesto would convert the SRD grant into a Job Seekers Grant that recipients keep only while they show they are looking for work, and says the grant can continue only if growth and tax revenue allow. That keeps the current grant with conditions rather than creating a permanent, larger basic income grant.

People earning more than about R1.9 million a year should pay more tax than they do now.

The 2024 manifesto commits to no new taxes, says taxpayers are already overburdened, promises inflation-adjusted brackets to stop hidden increases and wants to widen the pool of taxpayers rather than take more from those who already carry the state.

When awarding tenders, municipalities should keep giving extra points to black-owned businesses.

The 2026 manifesto says the DA will keep fighting to replace B-BBEE with a non-racial empowerment model that targets poverty instead of race, and will require DA municipalities to disclose any premiums paid above the lowest qualifying price, including those arising from preferential procurement. The 2024 manifesto commits to removing racial targets from the Preferential Procurement Act.

Party leaders outside the council should have a say in who gets senior municipal jobs such as municipal manager.

The DA's End Cadre Deployment Bill would make merit-based appointment compulsory, bar public servants from party office and make political interference in appointments a criminal offence, and the 2026 manifesto commits to merit-based appointments with qualification criteria instead of political connections. The DA voted for the 2022 Municipal Systems Amendment Act barring municipal staff from party office.

A party should need at least 1% of the vote to get a seat on a council.

The DA tabled a Municipal Structures amendment in 2024 and published a Municipal Threshold Bill in January 2025 so that a party must win enough votes for a full seat before it can get seats from remainders, and in April 2026 its Gauteng mayoral candidates backed a 1% threshold in the government's Municipal Structures Amendment Bill.

Parties should be required by law to make women at least half of their candidates.

In September 2012 the DA said a legislated quota requiring parties to field at least 50% women would violate the constitutional right to non-discrimination and was as problematic as representation by race. In March 2024 Helen Zille said the DA does not do quotas for women and never will.

Provincial governments should be scrapped, with their work handed to national government and municipalities.

The DA's values commit it to devolving power to the level closest to people, and in 2023 its Federal Council unanimously endorsed the Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill to move policing, transport, energy, trade and harbour powers to capable provinces. The party wants provinces strengthened, not abolished.

The Western Cape should hold a referendum on whether to become an independent country.

Asked in January 2024 whether he would back an independence referendum, Premier Winde said that even with the power to call one it would never work, and that the answer is to fix South Africa and devolve powers. The DA has not called a referendum and has repeatedly rejected secession.

The National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme should go ahead.

The DA voted against the NHI Bill in the National Assembly in June 2023, calling it a scheme that would bankrupt the fiscus, and its 2024 manifesto rejects the NHI in favour of a universal healthcare coverage model built on medical schemes and social reinsurance.

The school's governing body should have the final say on the language the school teaches in.

The DA voted against the BELA Bill in the National Assembly on 26 October 2023 and again on 16 May 2024 (223 to 78), arguing that it takes language and admission policy away from school governing bodies and hands it to provincial heads of department. Its campaign page says governing bodies, not officials, should decide language policy, and its 2024 manifesto defends mother-tongue education where parent communities choose it.

Public universities and colleges should be free for all students, not only for those from poorer homes.

The DA's 2024 manifesto calls the current fee-free model unsustainable because nothing is repaid, and proposes turning NSFAS into a tiered system of bursaries and loans: full cost of study for households earning up to R180,000, two thirds up to R350,000 and one third up to R600,000, with students repaying a portion according to their ability to pay. That is an explicit middle position that extends state support to the missing middle without making study free for everyone.

The government should sell SAA, the national airline.

After the collapse of the Takatso sale the DA's shadow minister of public enterprises said there is no strategic need for a state-run airline and that SAA must be cut loose and sold, and the party has refused to support any further bailouts. The 2024 manifesto backs a balanced approach to privatising state companies, which points the same way.

The mines should be brought under state ownership.

In August 2011 DA spokesman Tim Harris called on the President to openly reject the debate on nationalising the mines, saying it was damaging investment, and the party has opposed nationalisation consistently since, rejecting the EFF's 2017 motion to nationalise the banks and resolving in 2023 to defend the Reserve Bank. That is a stated position against state ownership of the mines.

Government should end race-based measures such as BEE in jobs, contracts and benefits.

The 2024 manifesto says race must be removed as a consideration in policy and legislation, with redress based on material disadvantage rather than skin colour, and proposes removing racial targets and quotas from the Employment Equity and Preferential Procurement Acts and taking BBBEE out of procurement law.

The courts should keep the power to cancel a law that breaks the Constitution.

The DA's values commit it to the supremacy of the Constitution, the rule of law and an independent judiciary, and its 2024 manifesto proposes clear public criteria to protect judicial independence. The party repeatedly uses the courts to test legislation, including the Expropriation Act and the Employment Equity Amendment Act.

Government should play a smaller part in the economy than it does now.

The 2024 manifesto says the state's role is to create the conditions for private enterprise to flourish, and promises to cut red tape and take a balanced approach to privatising state enterprises.