MK

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

The 2024 manifesto promises to review and repeal all privatisation agreements, the Independent Power Producers programme and the unbundling of Eskom, and to renew Eskom's coal fleet and nuclear build so that state utilities supply cheap electricity. That is the opposite of letting municipalities buy from private producers.

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

The 2024 manifesto commits to reversing and rescinding what it calls the un-just transition from coal, renewing Eskom's coal fleet and speeding up a nuclear build, and to repealing the independent power producer programme. Its MPs have since questioned government plans to close coal-fired power stations.

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

The 2024 manifesto commits to reverse policies that favour private capital over the state in providing water infrastructure and to keep water and other natural resources under state ownership and control. In the July 2025 water budget debate the party's MP said MK wants water kept under public democratic control forever.

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

The 2024 manifesto commits to expropriate all land without compensation with ownership passing to the people under state and traditional-leader custodianship. In 2025 the party's MP tabled a constitutional amendment bill to remove compensation from section 25 and allow expropriation without compensation for a public purpose or in the public interest.

The death penalty should be brought back for murder.

The 2024 manifesto does not call for the death penalty to be brought back. It promises a referendum on the death penalty, which leaves the decision to voters.

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

The party says it has tabled a private member's bill to reserve spaza shop ownership for South African citizens only, citing undocumented foreign nationals trading in the township economy. In November 2024 its spokesperson said informal businesses must be reserved for poor black South Africans.

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

The 2024 manifesto proposes a basic income grant above the R1,558 poverty line only for people who cannot work, while adults able to work would get a state job at R4,500 a month instead of a grant. The party does not commit to a permanent grant for unemployed adults in general.

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

The party has repeatedly called for a wealth tax on the rich, restating in Parliament in December 2025 that one should fund health care and social safety nets, and its chief whip said in March 2025 that wealthy residents should pay a wealth tax and corporate tax should rise instead of VAT.

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

The 2024 manifesto promises to review procurement rules to encourage participation by black, women and youth owned businesses and to set lending targets for them, while moving away from the current BEE share-ownership model. In September 2026 the party said it could not celebrate a court ruling that stalled a law advancing transformation in public procurement and that transformation must proceed.

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

When the committee discussed draft coalition legislation with a proposed 1% council threshold, the party's MP warned that thresholds designed to exclude smaller parties would centralise power and silence opposition, but also proposed studying a country that uses a threshold and considering a similar system if it works. A second MK member asked for protection for larger parties.

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

The 2024 manifesto does not scrap provinces. It would cut them from nine to four and redraw their boundaries, and it says the party opposes moves toward a federal state.

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

The 2024 manifesto warns against moves to turn South Africa into a federal state and against efforts by some provinces to secede, and would cut the provinces to four. In 2026 the party's MP gave notice of a bill to repeal section 235 of the Constitution (the self-determination clause) to prevent 'fragmentation' and consolidate a unitary state, which the Cape independence lobby condemned.

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

The 2024 manifesto commits to implementing the NHI to shift resources away from expensive private health care, and the party's May 2026 complaint was that the NHI does not go far enough rather than that it should stop.

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

The MK Party's 2024 manifesto commits to an education system that is fee free and compulsory from kindergarten through to postgraduate study, with no income test, and to paying PhD candidates as full-time employees with benefits at all public universities.

The government should sell SAA, the national airline.

The 2024 manifesto promises to bring SAA back to 100% state ownership by repealing the Takatso deal and to review and repeal all privatisation agreements. MK MPs said in Parliament in October 2024 that privatisation should never be supported, even when framed as finding an equity partner.

The mines should be brought under state ownership.

The 2024 manifesto commits to nationalise the Reserve Bank, all the large banks and large insurance companies, and strategic mining firms, along with ArcelorMittal and Sasol, and to set up a network of state-owned banks.

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

The 2024 manifesto keeps race-based policy at the centre of its economic plan: it wants BEE reformed rather than ended, set lending targets for businesses owned by Black people, women and youth, and procurement rules that favour them. In September 2026 the party said transformation in public procurement must proceed.

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

The 2024 manifesto commits to move the country from constitutional supremacy to unfettered parliamentary supremacy and to hold a referendum to scrap the 1996 Constitution in favour of a parliamentary system, with or without a codified constitution. Under that system the courts could not overturn Acts of Parliament.

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

The manifesto rejects policies that put the market ahead of state intervention and commits to nationalising the Reserve Bank, large banks and insurers and strategic mines, ending austerity, and repealing privatisation agreements including the IPP programme. In May 2026 the party also called for nationalising private healthcare.