LGE 2026 Manifestos: What the parties promise on immigration

What we did: we took the live manifesto pages for the seven parties on 16 October 2026, went back to the manifesto files, and read every sentence in them that bears on immigration. Sources are listed at the end.

We also keep Integrity Watch, a public register of documents that were corrected, withdrawn, refunded or punished after someone found made-up material in them.

This folio is about a different kind of check. It asks whether the immigration promises in election manifestos are ones a council can deliver after winning.

The 2026 local elections in short #

The vote. South Africans vote in local government elections on 4 November 2026. They choose the councillors who run 257 municipalities: 8 metropolitan (big-city), 44 district and 205 local. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) certified 136,790 candidates for 10,526 council seats. On 15 October 2026 the Constitutional Court directed the IEC to take the steps needed to put 181 ANC candidates on the ballot in six municipalities, so the final count will change. On 16 October 2026 the IEC said 32 other parties in the same position would get the same relief.

How many parties. 732 political parties are registered with the IEC at various levels. The IEC says 546 of them nominated candidates for this election.

What a council does. South Africa has three spheres of government: national, provincial and local. Part B of Schedules 4 and 5 of the Constitution list the matters a municipality may administer: 38 in all, among them drinking water and domestic waste-water and sewage systems, electricity and gas reticulation (the local networks), refuse removal, municipal roads and street trading. Jobs, schools, hospitals, welfare, the courts and immigration are not on those lists. A council can still lobby, partner with or press the government that holds the power.

What a manifesto is. A manifesto is a party’s published list of promises, so that voters can read them and decide.

What Ukweli did. Ukweli has analysed twelve party manifestos for this election. It found 2,419 promises and quoted each in the party’s own words, with its page. It checked each promise it could assess against the Constitution’s lists of what a council does. Where a sentence is too short or vague to test, or Ukweli’s checks did not settle it, the card says “Could not be assessed by Ukweli”. Where a sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government, the card says “Mixes different powers”. Both labels describe Ukweli’s check, not the party.

Who is in. The twelve parties are shown below. Ukweli analyses any 2026 local government manifesto it can obtain from the party’s own publication. That is a rule about documents, never a judgement about a party. Parties have reported 19 manifesto launches; for the other seven, Ukweli cannot yet reach a readable document online. Many other parties contest the election, and this folio does not cover them.

Each party’s assessment is one click away.

ACDPRead the assessment →ActionSARead the assessment →AMMRead the assessment →ANCRead the assessment →BOSARead the assessment →DARead the assessment →EFFRead the assessment →FF PlusRead the assessment →GOODRead the assessment →IFPRead the assessment →SACPRead the assessment →UDMRead the assessment →

Each button opens that party’s assessment on ukweli.io in a new tab, so this page stays open. Party logos belong to the parties and are shown for identification only. Ukweli is not affiliated with any party.

What Ukweli does not do. It does not score, grade, rank or endorse any party. It does not say whether a promise will be kept or whether it is affordable. A promise outside a council’s powers is not a false promise.

Figures in this section as at 22 October 2026. They come from the IEC, the Constitution’s schedules and Ukweli’s live manifesto pages (sources at the end), and they move when a manifesto is added or the IEC publishes a new figure. Errors: hello@ukweli.io.

Can a local council do anything about illegal immigration? #

Very little, directly. Immigration, border control, deportation and asylum are run by national government: the Immigration Act, the Refugees Act and the Border Management Authority Act each place them with the Minister of Home Affairs. A council can only do what the Constitution lists for it, and the list is short. Part B of Schedule 4 names 15 matters and Part B of Schedule 5 names 23. We read both on gov.za on 16 October 2026, and neither names immigration, borders, asylum or deportation. Ukweli’s reference table of the three spheres of government places immigration and border control with national government. Councils do get drawn in at the edges. Section 44 of the Immigration Act says that, when possible, any organ of state must try to find out the status or citizenship of the people it serves. It must report any illegal foreigner to the Director-General of Home Affairs, without stopping services those people are entitled to (Source 10). The Constitution counts any administration in the local sphere of government as an organ of state (section 239, Source 11), so on our reading the duty reaches a municipality. We have not found a court ruling on how it applies to one, and we do not rely on it here.

What is on a council’s lists includes trading regulations, street trading, building regulations, municipal health services, the licensing and control of food and liquor sellers, and traffic and parking. So a council has powers over how businesses trade and how buildings are used. It has no power over who may enter the country, who may stay, or who is deported.

That does not make a promise false. A council can still lobby, work with or press the government that holds the power. But a voter can fairly ask a candidate: whose power is it, and how will you get it done?

The 16 promises, party by party #

Each promise below is described in our words. The party’s exact words are in its manifesto and on its page on ukweli.io, which each party name links to. Parties are listed alphabetically. Page numbers are the printed ones; where a page carries none we give the page of the file.

ACDP · 3 promises

1. Page 5 (file page 8)
   Draw up development plans to deal with migration and the challenges it brings.
   Outside a council’s powers
2. File page 12, no printed number
   Strengthen the police, the army and the Border Management Authority to secure the borders and stop criminal networks and illegal immigration.
   Outside a council’s powers
3. File page 12, no printed number
   Make sure the authorities enforce immigration law strictly, carry out lawful deportations humanely and root out corruption and criminal syndicates inside Home Affairs, while condemning violence against undocumented foreigners.
   Outside a council’s powers

ActionSA · 3 promises

1. Page 3
   Use every lawful municipal power to help tackle crime and illegal immigration.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government
2. Page 46
   Use municipal powers, and work with Home Affairs, the police and other authorities, to identify suspected immigration violations found during lawful municipal operations, refer them, and see that they are followed through.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government
3. Page 46
   Where a matter, immigration enforcement included, falls outside municipal powers, bring the responsible authority into the response instead of treating jurisdiction as an excuse.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government

AMM · 1 promise

1. Page 27
   Set up specialised municipal police units to fight drugs, illegal immigration and building hijackings.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government

ANC · 3 promises

1. Page 28
   Work with national departments to ensure compliance with labour and immigration laws, as part of building a properly regulated local economy.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government
2. Page 35
   “Enforce immigration laws”: work with Home Affairs, Employment and Labour and law enforcement against unlawful employment, trading without permits, unsafe accommodation and fraudulent documents.
   Could not be assessed by Ukweli: Ukweli could not verify its reading of this multi-part sentence
3. Page 35
   Protect South African workers and businesses from exploitation and unlawful employment, and plan for the pressure that population growth and migration put on housing, transport and services.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government

BOSA · 4 promises

1. File page 17, no printed number
   Put in place strict municipal frameworks that put South African citizens first, and make foreign-owned businesses contribute fairly to local government and the wider economy.
   Outside a council’s powers (it falls under local economic development, jobs and enterprise)
2. File page 17, no printed number
   Enforce a zero-tolerance policy on unlawful economic activity by foreign-owned businesses.
   Led by another sphere, council has a role
3. File page 17, no printed number
   Introduce a special municipal tax and levy framework for foreign nationals.
   Outside a council’s powers (it falls under new municipal taxes)
4. File page 18, no printed number
   Work with Home Affairs on a registration window that lets undocumented people who qualify, for example through marriage to a citizen, regularise their stay, with strict enforcement for those who do not comply.
   Outside a council’s powers

EFF · 1 promise

1. Page 37 (file page 39)
   Give targeted support to vulnerable groups, naming migrants among them, with persons with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ persons, people living in poverty and survivors of gender-based violence. The EFF promise is a welfare commitment that names migrants. It is not a promise on borders or enforcement.
   Outside a council’s powers (it falls under welfare services)

IFP · 1 promise

1. Page 8 (file page 9)
   Monitor, and seek the prosecution of, property owners, landlords or South Africans who front for undocumented foreign nationals (register businesses on their behalf), working with law enforcement in a whole-of-government response.
   Mixes different powers: the sentence promises several things that fall under different powers or spheres of government

The eight without a verdict #

Seven promises carry no single verdict from Ukweli. Each joins matters in one sentence that fall under different powers or spheres of government, and three separate readings agreed on that. We call these bundled. A single verdict on a sentence that joins several matters would be right for one part and wrong for another. We would rather give no verdict than a wrong one. These seven are not hidden. They sit on the party pages as "Mixes different powers". The party pages also show some of these sentences in parts, each part with its own verdict. The eighth, the ANC’s “Enforce immigration laws” sentence, also carries no verdict. Ukweli’s readings tried to separate its parts, but the separation could not be verified, so its parts sit on the ANC page as "Could not be assessed by Ukweli". This folio gives one verdict for each sentence, that of the whole sentence.

What the manifestos say without promising #

Alongside the 16 promises we found 11 passages that talk about immigration or foreign nationals but do not commit the party to an action. They are in five of the twelve manifestos. A passage is one sentence, or several in a row making the same point, counted once. We give counts only. We do not name the parties and we do not quote, because a passage read without its page can say more or less than the page does.

Of the 12 manifestos we analysed, which speak about immigration?

Made a direct promise

AMM1 promise

EFF1 promise

IFP1 promise

ACDP3 promises

ActionSA3 promises

ANC3 promises

BOSA4 promises

Made no direct promise

DA

FF Plus

GOOD

SACP

UDM

• 7 made a direct promise
• 5 did not. One of these five has a passage about immigration and no promise.

Compared with 2021 #

Three of the twelve parties also have a 2021 local manifesto we could read: the ANC, the DA and the EFF. In 2021 none of the three made a direct promise about immigration, and only the DA mentioned it once, in a passage about funding. In 2026 the same three made four direct promises between them. That is a count of what was written.

Our view, not a finding: it is no secret that immigration is a hot topic in South Africa at the moment (Sources 4 and 5). A party that wants to seem relevant has a reason to say something about it. We think that is part of why the three we can compare say more about it in 2026. A manifesto cannot show why a party wrote what it wrote, and we did not test this. The count is evidence; the explanation is our opinion.