IFP

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

The 2024 manifesto commits to open the energy market and diversify generation, and says wind and solar are an opportunity for private investment. Party statements since 2022 repeatedly call for independent power producers to be allowed to supply the grid and for deregulation to happen quickly.

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

The 2026 manifesto rebuilds municipal technical capacity first and brings in the private sector for technical and operational support only where capacity falls short. That is help for a municipal system, not hiring a company to run it.

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

The 2024 manifesto widens the free-house income band from R3,500 to R5,500 a month while using rent-to-own, serviced sites and affordable private housing for everyone else, which is a middle position.

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

The 2024 manifesto supports land expropriation with reasonable compensation. The IFP voted against the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Bill on section 25 in December 2021 and, in January 2025, said it opposes the Expropriation Act because its nil compensation clauses are vague and open to abuse.

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

The party's 2024 KwaZulu-Natal plan promised a provincial police force, and its 2020 statement on the SAPS Amendment Bill called for policing powers to be decentralised from national to provincial and local authorities, with the national minister and commissioner keeping only a coordinating role.

The death penalty should be brought back for murder.

The 2024 manifesto commits to open a national debate on reinstating the death penalty as a deterrent to violent crime, and party statements in 2024 called for a debate or a referendum on it. The party asks for a debate or a vote rather than committing to bring it back.

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

The 2026 manifesto says the spaza-shop industry must be reserved for South Africans in every municipality, and commits IFP municipalities to enforcement operations and to prosecute people who front for undocumented foreign nationals. The 2024 manifesto made the same commitment for the small enterprise market and spaza shops.

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

The 2024 manifesto says everyone in South Africa must have equal access to state health services and would invoice the home countries of people in the country illegally who use them, which recovers the cost rather than limiting access. In October 2025 the party's leader said South Africans must come first in social services and called for deportations, and in February 2026 he called for law reforms to stop abuse of healthcare by people in the country illegally, without saying what access should remain, so the party sits between the two sides.

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

The 2024 manifesto commits an IFP government to overhaul restrictive labour legislation that holds back job creation and to exempt small businesses from stringent requirements and excessive red tape. It does not use the words hire and fire, so the coding rests on the overhaul commitment.

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

The party president said in May 2023 that the IFP has long favoured a basic income grant, and an IFP MP told Parliament in April 2023 that the R350 grant must be increased or the basic income grant implemented as soon as possible.

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

In 2025 the IFP backed the VAT increase and asked for better tax collection and spending cuts instead of new taxes on the wealthy. That is a stated preference against raising taxes on high earners.

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

The 2026 manifesto commits IFP municipalities to fill senior posts through fair, transparent, merit-based processes with competent, technically skilled people. As a Multi-Party Charter member in 2024 the IFP signed a pledge to end cadre deployment and make all public appointments on merit, and Hlabisa told Parliament in February 2026 that officials must be deployed on competency, not political deployment.

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

The party president has repeatedly said the IFP secured the creation of provinces at the constitutional negotiations as a check on centralised government, and the 2024 manifesto wants powers devolved to provinces and municipalities to run health institutions. The party treats provinces as its own achievement to be kept.

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

The 2024 manifesto supports universal health coverage but commits to review the NHI to fix its funding model and define the roles of private providers and medical schemes, and the party has since called for the scheme to be piloted and phased in rather than scrapped or implemented as it stands.

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

The IFP's 2024 manifesto promises free basic education but limits state-sponsored higher education to poor and low-income families, alongside moving NSFAS administration back to the institutions and investing more in TVET colleges.

The government should sell SAA, the national airline.

The IFP's 2024 manifesto refuses further bailouts but says failing state companies should be revived, with public-private partnerships for those that cannot be, rather than sold. In 2021 the party welcomed the sale of a 51% stake in SAA, so its record is mixed and does not add up to a commitment either way.

The mines should be brought under state ownership.

The party constitution commits the IFP to free-market enterprise and says government should not run economic enterprises where the private sector can provide the product or service. The IFP spoke against the EFF's 2017 motion to nationalise the banks, its founder warned against nationalising the mines in 2016, and since 2019 it has repeatedly called for partial privatisation of state-owned enterprises.

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

The party constitution commits the IFP to advanced constitutionalism and a justiciable, rigid and supreme constitution, under which courts test laws against the Constitution and can strike them down. In July 2026 the party's chief whip said the IFP respects the court's judgment and the independence of the judiciary after a court halted a parliamentary process.

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

The party constitution backs economic pluralism based on free-market enterprise, says government should not take part in economic activity the private sector can provide, and calls for limits on the role and scope of government. The 2024 manifesto adds cutting red tape, exempting small firms from stringent requirements and public-private partnerships for failing state enterprises.