How to read the scores
AI analysis assigns a numerical score from -2 to +2 based on the party's stance relative to state control vs. free market, or opposition vs. support for a specific policy reform.
Policy Commitments
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The party strongly advocates for radical reforms in municipal governance to combat widespread corruption, ineptitude, and lack of accountability. They propose direct election of mayors, an end to cadre deployment, strengthening independent oversight bodies like Municipal Public Accounts Committees, and introducing a recall mechanism for elected officials to ensure meritocracy and responsiveness to citizens.
Key Proposals
- Strengthen bipartisan efforts to prioritise accountability over partisan interests.
- Implement robust internal controls and undertake forensic auditing to prosecute wrongdoers.
- Establish, empower, and resource independent bodies to investigate corruption cases without political interference.
- Enact stricter laws and establish special courts to expedite corruption cases.
- Demand an abrupt end to cadre deployment and implement professionalisation of the civil service.
- Directly elect the President, Premiers, and Mayors to ensure accountability to the people.
- Introduce a mixed electoral system (constituency-based plus proportional representation) and replace the Closed List PR system with an Open List PR system.
- Formalise and empower Municipal Public Accounts Committees (PACs) to strengthen their oversight functions.
- Amend legislation to clarify the division of roles between municipal executive and legislative arms.
- Impose a two-year prohibition on councillors found guilty of breaching the Code of Conduct.
- Amend legislation to address inefficient use of consultants, insufficient infrastructure investment, ineffective financial planning, failures in compliance controls, unfunded budgets, and serial failure to provide essential services.
- Introduce a recall mechanism for elected officials to remove them from office before their term ends due to corruption or failures.
- Establish a separate prosecuting office to exclusively handle cases involving government officials and politicians.
- Press for recovering assets stolen through corruption.
The party emphasizes fundamental reform of primary, TVET, and higher education to address skills crises, inequality, and unemployment. They advocate for early education for low-income families, supporting teachers with resources and training, aligning curricula with job market needs, and leveraging S3 Centres for skills development and community libraries.
Key Proposals
- Ensure legislators have expertise and innovative ideas for improving public schools.
- Support teachers with excellent resources, technical tools, lesson notes, and software for administrative tasks.
- Provide teacher assistants in every classroom.
- Bring back Colleges of Education to emphasize practical rather than theoretical teaching.
- Revise teachers' college curriculum to include South African and African philosophy on child upbringing.
- Provide continuous training for teachers on social problems affecting learners (HIV/Aids, poverty, lawlessness).
- Involve communities in strengthening and improving school infrastructure (modern classrooms, quality libraries, laboratories, computer rooms).
- Encourage community ownership of school property and provide professional security guards.
- Ensure adequate and attractive learning materials, screened reading materials, and curricula that keep pace with technological changes and career opportunities.
- Assess skills in demand provincially to fashion curricula for local economic growth.
- Provide ongoing education for parents to adjust to a world where AI impacts jobs.
- Make schools centres of arts, culture, and sports.
- Implement community-based pregnancy prevention programmes involving schools and support services for teenagers.
- Prioritise getting more children from low-income families into education early with the same quality as wealthy communities.
- Conduct subject-specific competency tests for teachers and provide intensive training, linking pay increases to competency.
- Ensure TVET colleges collaborate with industry partners for relevant curricula and prioritise work placements for graduates.
- Address socio-economic disparities in access to higher education and ensure equal opportunities.
- Make higher education affordable, exploring new strategies and partnerships (e.g., MIT online courses).
- Ensure reliable internet connectivity for students and educators, including data donation initiatives and community Wi-Fi hotspots.
- Leverage S3 Centres to provide skills training (e.g., computer literacy) and support for job seekers.
- Promote sports at schools and provide funding for equipment.
- Prioritise building and maintaining sports facilities in townships.
- Reintroduce physical education into school curricula and increase exposure to sports.
The party strongly advocates for a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, including solar, wind, and hydropower, to address the climate crisis and energy poverty. They propose significant investment in renewable energy infrastructure, including municipal-level energy storage and microgrids, with legislative and financial support for municipalities and public-private partnerships.
Key Proposals
- Streamline the process of obtaining permits and approvals for rooftop solar installations.
- Provide better financing options for rooftop solar installations.
- Invest in research and development to improve the efficiency and affordability of rooftop solar technology.
- Provide legislative and financial support for municipalities to invest in battery storage or pumped hydro.
- Develop national and municipal plans to deploy energy storage to ease the electricity crisis and reduce load shedding.
- Encourage municipalities to begin phased installation of mega batteries on a public-private sector basis.
- Support the use of suitable-sized microgrids as a valuable addition to the national grid, especially in townships.
- Establish citizen energy co-operatives in townships with proper regulations and funding.
- Transition swiftly from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources (solar, wind, wave, hydropower).
- Promote energy efficiency and solar installations in homes and businesses.
- Reduce reliance on fossil fuels to alleviate the climate crisis, improve public health, and lower consumer prices.
- Collaborate with international partners to acquire knowledge and resources for renewable energy transition.
- Set ambitious targets for transitioning to renewable energy.
The party advocates for innovative housing solutions, including expanding government housing eligibility and supporting mortgages, while partnering with private companies. They emphasize transforming townships into vibrant, economically functional neighborhoods through spatial restructuring, promoting black property ownership, and formalizing and upgrading informal settlements with community involvement and skills training.
Key Proposals
- Expand options for affordable homes and widen the number of people who qualify for government housing or support to get mortgages.
- Partner with private companies to broaden housing choices.
- Implement innovative, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective building designs.
- Amend the National Housing Act to remove the 8-year prohibition on selling government-subsidized houses.
- Amend the Prevention of Illegal Evictions Act to address illegal land grabs, allow expropriation with reasonable/reduced compensation, and prevent jumping the housing queue.
- Facilitate and guide informal developers to contribute to housing solutions.
- Utilise vacant land and convert underutilised properties into housing units.
- Encourage cooperative housing models.
- Provide temporary shelters or transitional housing.
- Transform townships into viable, economically functional neighborhoods through spatial restructuring and diversification of land use.
- Promote black property ownership by vitalising 'dead' capital in residential stock and creating a secondary property market in townships.
- Enforce regulations for establishing and governing informal settlements, with targets for upgrading the oldest ones.
- Open a register of skills in each informal settlement and provide skills training for dwellers to participate in upgrades.
- Provide security of tenure and addresses for households in formalised informal settlements.
The party advocates for strict immigration controls, prioritizing South African workers, and addressing the challenges posed by undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. They propose a comprehensive legal framework for legal immigration, enhanced border security to prevent illegal immigration, and strict regulations on foreign nationals' employment, while also acknowledging the need for fair and just policies for refugees and asylum seekers.
Key Proposals
- Streamline processes at the Department of Home Affairs for verifying and documenting migrants.
- Promptly verify undocumented status and issue proper documentation or deportation notices.
- Create immigration laws that allow faster processes, greater clarity, and more humanity.
- Establish a comprehensive framework that supports legal immigration.
- Implement steps to prevent illegal immigration by enhancing border security.
- Lay down clear pathways to speedy citizenship.
- Establish clear guidelines for granting asylum and refugee status in a streamlined process.
- Prioritise family reunification by expediting visa processing for family members.
- Impose quotas to limit the number of foreigners employed and protect employment opportunities for South Africans.
- Ensure foreign nationals perform the work they are specifically employed in and include a skills transfer plan.
- Enforce the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995.
- Allow refugees and asylum seekers to contribute to the economy and create jobs, not just engage in the informal economy.
- Continuously assess the economic impact of refugees and asylum seekers to adjust policies fairly and justly.
- Prioritise specific sectors needing urgent critical skills unavailable in South Africa to retain scarce skills.
- Address xenophobia by fostering dialogue, promoting tolerance, and addressing underlying issues.
- Politicians should not exploit xenophobia for their agendas.
The party strongly supports the continuation of social grants and aims to enhance their impact by integrating them with economic opportunities. They propose establishing Self-Help, Skills Training, and Social Support (S3) Centres in poor wards to empower grant recipients and jobless individuals with skills, microcredit, and support to become self-reliant and supplement their income.
Key Proposals
- Continue paying existing social grants (disability, older persons, war veteran's, foster child, care dependency, child support grants).
- Allow grant recipients to supplement their income without any restrictions.
- Establish Self-Help, Skills Training, and Social Support (S3) Centres in every poor ward to provide skills training, support, facilitation, and mentoring.
- S3 Centres will help jobless people become better skilled, more self-reliant, and enjoy greater dignity.
- S3 Centres will provide microcredit to poor people, especially women, to start businesses.
- S3 Centres will serve as trusted destinations for donations and unwanted goods from more affluent "twin wards."
- S3 Centres should offer night and longer-term rented shelters.
- S3 Centres can operate markets and be a drawcard for tourism.
- Emulate successful self-help programs from other countries (e.g., Grameen Bank, SEWA, Kudumbashree).
- Harness cultural heritage and activities in S3 Centres to address poverty, unemployment, and inequality.
The party advocates for modernizing policing and prosecution to enhance citizen safety and combat widespread lawlessness, crime, and violence, particularly in townships. They propose strengthening community policing, compelling private security agencies to support poorer neighborhoods, improving forensic work, and establishing intelligence centers to address specific criminal activities.
Key Proposals
- Modernise and improve policing and prosecution.
- Strengthen community policing, including coordinating patrol schedules and emergency response procedures.
- Compel private security agencies to support poorer neighborhoods and hold formal monthly meetings with police and other role players.
- Table legislation to allow the private security industry to cooperate with the police.
- Improve forensic work to lead to better case resolution.
- Address the deterioration in police professionalism through better recruitment and training.
- Train police to undertake thorough and efficient investigations, with forensic expertise.
- Update police and prosecutors' qualifications annually, including technology, legal developments, and best practices.
- Use artificial intelligence to streamline case management and reduce delays.
- Create specialised units for complex cases like corruption, organised crime, and cybercrime.
- Reinstate the National Prosecuting Authority Act of 1998 to reactivate the Scorpions.
- Establish an intelligence centre in each town or city to gather information on illegal activities (drug trafficking, illegal guns, public brandishing of firearms, suspicious activities).
- Reduce murder hotspots and effectively prevent domestic violence.
- Educate the public about intelligence-led policing and legal limits on law enforcement.
- Invite public volunteers to assist at police front counters.
- Implement community-led initiatives like neighbourhood watch programmes.
The party aims to fix the complex and challenging health system by ensuring equitable access to quality healthcare for all, particularly in underserved communities and townships. They propose strengthening public-private partnerships, investing in infrastructure, increasing human resources, promoting community participation, and expanding municipal clinics to offer comprehensive primary care, including mobile clinics and self-care interventions.
Key Proposals
- Strengthen the partnership between the private and public sectors in healthcare delivery.
- Develop a strategy for supporting human resource capacity in health facilities.
- Implement centralised procurement of goods via open tenders to make the budget go further.
- Improve management in health facilities, ensuring it is professional, competent, democratic, transparent, and accountable.
- Undertake annual evaluation of senior managers in health.
- Promote social innovation in health to develop new ideas, services, and models of care.
- Ensure significant community participation in tailoring health services to community needs.
- Follow National Core Standards for Health Establishments and Quality Improvement Guides.
- Ensure sufficient healthcare providers in public clinics and hospitals, recruiting and retaining them with training and remuneration.
- Allow qualified unemployed doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and therapists to work as private practitioners in clinics/hospitals for an affordable fee (R100 per consultation).
- Encourage qualified doctors from SA and worldwide to volunteer services.
- Equip public clinics and hospitals with necessary infrastructure, equipment, water, electricity, and medical supplies.
- Permit private individuals and companies to offer services/equipment that clinics/hospitals cannot provide.
- Implement effective clinical governance, monitoring, and evaluation systems.
- Conduct ongoing awareness campaigns for hygiene, sanitation, and vaccination.
- Invest in research for infectious diseases and leverage modern technologies like AI for predictive models.
- Provide Saturday morning training in community facilities for younger families on disease prevention and care.
- Promote regular exercise, healthy eating, and weight management to prevent diabetes and obesity, with screening at schools, tertiary institutions, workplaces, and mobile clinics.
- Encourage community members to volunteer time and skills and donate medical equipment to clinics/hospitals.
- Provide mobile health clinics in rural areas for check-ups, vaccinations, and health education.
- Utilise telemedicine and mobile technology to improve healthcare access.
- Promote self-care interventions based on WHO guidelines.
- Establish AI kiosks for basic diagnostics and personalised health information.
- Invest in healthcare infrastructure, including building new facilities with community sweat equity.
- Provide comprehensive sex education at school and through customary practices to prevent teenage pregnancies.
The party prioritizes state-led economic transformation, particularly in townships, to combat joblessness and poverty. They propose establishing Self-Help, Skills Training, and Social Support (S3) Centres in every poor ward to provide skills development, entrepreneurship support, and job creation opportunities, alongside promoting private sector investment and tax benefits for township industries.
Key Proposals
- Strengthen social safety nets.
- Transform townships and rural economies.
- Promote land ownership for previously disadvantaged communities.
- Support Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for employment generation and economic diversification.
- Invest in agriculture and agribusiness for rural development and food security.
- Establish Self-Help, Skills Training, and Social Support (S3) Centres in every poor ward of every town and city.
- These S3 Centres will offer various skills training courses (e.g., welding, carpentry, plumbing, computer literacy, catering).
- S3 Centres will provide support services like counselling, mentorship, marketing, and job placement.
- Municipalities must set aside and service large tracts of land for S3 Centres in areas with widespread unemployment.
- Use unemployed labour for building S3 Centres and invite volunteers with stipends.
- Encourage private sector investment in townships through technical assistance and capital grant financing.
- Provide tax benefits for industries located in townships to bring work closer to people's homes.
- Give occupants of township homes title deeds to improve property value and enable wealth creation.
- Promote manufacturing and productive activities in townships through an appropriate legal and regulatory environment.
- Encourage entrepreneurship in townships by creating an enabling environment.
- Operationalise a new "Operation Phakisa" via S3 Centres to create millions of job opportunities in sectors like construction, healthcare, education, IT, tourism, retail, transportation, finance, manufacturing, chemicals, and waste management.
- Support citizen energy co-operatives in townships to provide cheap electricity for small enterprises.
The party advocates for a just and productive land reform approach that addresses historical injustices, prioritizes equitable redistribution to historically disadvantaged groups, and integrates customary land rights. They support expropriation with reasonable or reduced compensation, community-driven land reform, and the establishment of community land trusts, while ensuring productive and ecologically sustainable land use.
Key Proposals
- Involve local communities in decision-making processes for land reform, identifying needs, preferences, and sustainable use practices.
- Establish community land trusts or cooperatives to collectively manage and benefit from redistributed land.
- Acknowledge and protect customary land rights, integrating them into formal legal frameworks.
- Prioritise land redistribution to historically disadvantaged groups dispossessed during colonial and apartheid eras.
- Implement a fair and transparent land allocation process considering need, historical injustice, and economic viability.
- Promote sustainable agricultural practices and invest in infrastructure to enhance land productivity.
- Support small-scale farmers and provide training in modern farming techniques.
- Assess ecological health of land before redistribution and consider climate change impacts.
- Provide just compensation to current landowners during expropriation, considering historical injustices.
- Facilitate land restitution for those forcibly removed, ensuring productive use of the land.
- Collaborate with private sector, NGOs, and international organisations to mobilise resources and expertise for land issues.
- Promote land ownership for previously disadvantaged communities.
The party emphasizes the critical need to improve and modernize public transportation, including formalizing the minibus taxi industry, revitalizing the rail sector, and integrating different transport modes. They advocate for significant investment in infrastructure, particularly in townships, and a rapid transition to electric and hydrogen vehicles to reduce emissions and transport costs.
Key Proposals
- Formalise the minibus taxi industry and integrate it into the public transport system, with clear state support.
- Revitalise the passenger rail sector for efficient and sustainable transportation.
- Increase integration between different modes of transport (buses, trains, taxis) to enhance connectivity.
- Invest in public transportation infrastructure, including constructing railway lines, stations, bus and taxi terminals, and new roads, especially in townships.
- Prioritise spatially connecting township residents to areas of mainstream economic activity.
- Adopt new technologies like electric vehicles (EVs) and green hydrogen for transport to reduce emissions and improve efficiency.
- Provide incentives (tax credits, subsidies) to encourage the use of electric/hydrogen vehicles, including for minibus taxis.
- Waive import tariffs on EVs and retrofitting kits for five years.
- Accelerate investment in recharging infrastructure or hydrogen refuelling.
- Consider subways as part of public transportation improvements.
- Implement a national ticketing system to simplify travel.
- Involve the private sector in passenger rail and other operating services, ensuring affordability.
- Regulate low-capacity modes of transport (private vehicles) to ease traffic congestion.
- Address freight and port difficulties through collaboration with private companies and establishing an independent regulator.
The party identifies as social democratic, committed to justice, constitutional democracy, and widening opportunities for the poor and marginalised. Their vision is a prosperous South Africa, united in diversity, at peace with itself, Africa, and the world. They strongly uphold the Constitution, advocate for nation-building to overcome historical divisions, and promote dialogue and tolerance to combat zealotry and racial prejudices. On international relations, they support a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine.
Key Proposals
- Uphold the Constitution as the supreme law, promoting human dignity, equality, non-racialism, non-sexism, and the rule of law.
- Foster a sense of unity, shared identity, and common purpose among diverse groups.
- Address historical divisions, inequalities, and mistrust to build a resilient and inclusive South African nation.
- Invest in education and promote symbols of unity for nation-building.
- Combat zealotry by fostering dialogue, promoting tolerance, and addressing underlying issues quickly.
- Reject radical political factions and violent protests that destabilise the nation.
- Support a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emphasizing mutual recognition and security for both states.
- Partner with Mexico to gain support for a peaceful settlement in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
- Ensure women's full and equal political participation and economic advancement.
- Promote inclusivity and diversity across all sports.
The party strongly advocates for improved and efficient municipal provision of basic services, including water, sanitation, and refuse removal, which are currently failing due to mismanagement, corruption, and neglected infrastructure. They emphasize the need for transparent management of funds, adequate budgeting, and community participation in service delivery.
Key Proposals
- Prioritise the provision of essential services like water, sanitation, and housing.
- Ensure transparent management of funds allocated for service delivery.
- Increase audits and build better accountability mechanisms to prevent misappropriation.
- Ensure adequate budget for water, sanitation, housing, and healthcare, managed by capable and qualified managers.
- Upgrade infrastructure such as roads, drains, water supply, and sanitation in townships.
- Implement proper waste management, including recycling and composting, in townships.
- Address decaying water infrastructure, including storage facilities, supply networks, and treatment plants.
- Implement robust leak detection programmes to minimise water losses.
- Treat and reuse wastewater for non-potable purposes.
- Prioritise investment in research and innovation for advanced water treatment, storage, and distribution.
- Promote public awareness and education on water conservation and responsible usage.
- Strengthen water governance and enforce regulations.