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
Filter by category to explore specific policy proposals.
The EFF is committed to establishing an open, accountable, and corrupt-free government, by strengthening local government spheres and abolishing the provincial layer. They propose insourcing all government services to eliminate tenders, implementing merit-based performance assessments for public servants, and mandating public representatives to directly oversee and address service delivery issues in adopted wards, informal settlements, and clinics.
Key Proposals
- Abolish the provincial sphere of government and strengthen local government spheres into a unitary state.
- Amend the Public Finance Management Act and Municipal Finance Management Act to compel all spheres of government to directly provide inherent state services, abolishing tenders.
- Implement an automated, corruption-free performance assessment system for public servants based on merit.
- Mandate the publication of all public representatives’ contact details to foster direct citizen reporting of service delivery issues.
- Require all public representatives to adopt schools, informal settlements, and clinics within their constituencies to oversee service delivery.
- Establish a prosecutorial body dedicated to prosecuting maladministration and financial misconduct, blacklisting convicted individuals from state employment.
- Ensure all EFF public representatives keep a record of indigent families in their ward to ensure they receive basic services.
- Prohibit EFF public representatives from accepting payments/donations for their work or being involved in nepotistic appointments.
The EFF is committed to providing free, decolonized education for all, from universal and compulsory Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs to free higher education. They plan to state-fund ECD centers, employ all ECD practitioners, and significantly invest in school infrastructure by eradicating pit latrines, building new schools, and establishing libraries with free internet access in all schools and communities.
Key Proposals
- Introduce free, decolonized education for all at all levels.
- Make universal provision for early childhood development (ECD) programs compulsory and free for children from three years upwards.
- Employ all ECD practitioners on a full-time basis with full pay and pension contributions by the government.
- Eradicate all pit latrines and inappropriate school structures (mud, asbestos) by 2026.
- Build a library in all schools without libraries by 2026, and community libraries in each ward by 2028, with free internet access.
- Provide two nutritious meals a day to all learners in all schools by 2025.
- Cancel all student debt and provide free higher education until a first degree for all.
- Build hostels for scholar transport and ensure all schools are electrified by 2026.
The EFF aims to end loadshedding by strengthening a consolidated, state-owned Eskom and terminating all private Independent Power Producer (IPP) contracts. While centralizing Eskom, they also propose significant subsidies and municipal conditional grants to support household and municipal-level embedded generation and off-grid energy solutions, particularly in areas with challenging grid connectivity.
Key Proposals
- End the privatization of Eskom and consolidate generation, transmission, and distribution as one company.
- Terminate all existing contracts with independent power producers and halt new IPP projects.
- Provide free electricity up to 200 kWh per month to poor households.
- Subsidize embedded electricity alternatives for public institutions and households.
- Introduce a municipal conditional grant for municipalities to implement hybrid and off-grid energy solutions.
- Authorize Eskom to take over electricity distribution from municipalities that are unable to manage financial obligations.
- Eliminate all historical electricity debts, including municipal debts owed to Eskom.
- Stop the decommissioning of any coal power station.
- Introduce a program of putting solar panels in all homes by 2028.
The EFF prioritizes state-led housing provision, aiming to deliver quality, spacious houses within integrated human settlements equipped with all basic services. They plan to repurpose the Housing Development Agency into a state construction company, establish a social housing company in each province, and create an Informal Settlement Agency for formalization and rezoning, while also expropriating land without compensation to end apartheid spatial planning.
Key Proposals
- Provide quality, spacious houses with a minimum of 3 bedrooms to all people within sustainable human settlements.
- Repurpose the Housing Development Agency (HDA) into a fully-fledged state housing construction company.
- Establish a social housing company in each province by 2026.
- Establish an Informal Settlement Agency (ISA) for the rezoning and formalization of all informal settlements by 2028.
- Do away with apartheid spatial planning and expropriate land without compensation closer to inner-city centers for housing.
- Convert unused state buildings into affordable housing for the poor, offering long-term, secured leaseholds.
- Make it illegal for banks to repossess houses from people who have paid off 50% of their bonds under certain circumstances.
- Assist municipalities in establishing housing companies to aggressively build social houses.
The EFF strongly advocates for Pan-Africanist integration, promoting open borders and the free movement of people within Africa, and supporting the implementation of an African Passport. They aim to repeal restrictive immigration policies and dismantle unnecessary border controls among African states. While emphasizing the registration of all immigrants, the overall policy is geared towards fostering regional economic integration and cultural exchange through open borders, rather than strict local border control or foreign spaza shop bans.
Key Proposals
- Advocate for the signing of the AU Free Movement of People Agreement by all African States.
- Advocate for the implementation of the African Passport.
- Reduce and eventually eradicate border gates among African states to One Stop Borders.
- Repeal all legislation and bureaucratic hurdles that hinder the free movement of people in Africa.
- Open borders within Africa to boost the economy, promote cultural exchange, and drive sustainable growth.
- Educate on misconceptions about security risks associated with open borders.
- Ensure all immigrants are registered and have their fingerprints captured by a new Department of Home Affairs and Internal Security.
The EFF is committed to significantly expanding social welfare provisions, including doubling all existing social grants and introducing new grants for unemployed graduates. They aim to expand free municipal basic services (water, electricity) and provide monthly nutritional packs to indigent families, linking social grant recipients to automatic qualification for these benefits. The policy also emphasizes ward-based social workers and municipal community centers to provide comprehensive support and protection for vulnerable populations.
Key Proposals
- Substantially increase all social grants (older persons, war veterans, disability, care dependency, foster child, child support, grant-in-aid) by doubling their amounts.
- Introduce a grant for unemployed graduates.
- Provide vulnerable households/indigent families with an expanded social package including free water, electricity, and Monthly Nutritional Packs.
- Develop technology to link all social grant recipients to automatically qualify for free water and electricity through indigent policy.
- Introduce a Ward-based Social Worker for direct provision of assessment, counselling, and referrals to households.
- Establish Multi-Purpose Community-based Centres (MPCCs) in all municipalities to offer civic services, information, and youth support.
- Provide emergency housing, clothing, and food to victims of disasters.
- Make it illegal to lend money to the indigent and provide free transport for pensioners, disabled persons, and orphans to grant pay points.
The EFF advocates for a tough-on-crime approach, proposing a significant increase in police officers, militarized municipal police task teams, and extensive use of surveillance technology like CCTV and AI. While acknowledging socio-economic causes of crime, their primary focus is on strengthening law enforcement, imposing harsher sentences for various crimes, and increasing police visibility in all communities, including informal settlements and townships.
Key Proposals
- Employ an additional 100,000 police officers by 2026.
- Establish satellite police stations open 24/7 in every ward lacking one by 2029.
- Mandate the establishment of specialized municipal police task teams to act as force multipliers.
- Improve crime intelligence capacity with CCTV cameras, artificial intelligence, and face recognition.
- Introduce harsher minimum and life sentences for serious crimes, including those against law enforcement officers.
- Increase police visibility in all communities, including informal settlements, townships, and rural areas.
- Train and equip Community Policing Forums and municipal street patrollers with uniforms and bulletproof vests.
- Build and adequately staff more emergency service stations in each ward, aiming for a 15-minute response time.
The EFF is committed to achieving universal health coverage by strengthening primary healthcare and establishing a people-centred, publicly funded health system. They propose building at least one 24-hour clinic per ward, integrating community healthcare workers as state employees, and ensuring equitable distribution of healthcare practitioners across districts. The policy explicitly rejects private profiteering in healthcare and aims to integrate traditional African medicine into primary care.
Key Proposals
- Renew the health system through strengthening Primary Health Care for universal coverage.
- Build at least one clinic per ward in all wards of South Africa, extending to one polyclinic per village.
- Regularize and fully integrate Community Healthcare Workers as full-time state employees.
- Build 24-hour integrated post-sexual trauma centres in all district hospitals, with ward-level focus.
- Massively increase the number of healthcare practitioners and ensure equitable spread across districts and provinces.
- Integrate African medicine into primary health care, including traditional healers and herbalists in district hospitals.
- Ensure that the benefit and profiteering of private companies will not be prioritized over the rights to health.
- Provide health and environmental health inspectors with inter-departmental support for by-law enforcement.
The EFF proposes a state-led and highly interventionist approach to local economic development, focusing on massive job creation through state-owned enterprises, insourcing government services, and strict procurement quotas for local, black, women, and youth-owned businesses. They aim to industrialize townships by declaring them special tax-free economic zones with job creation requirements for investors, and will support informal traders and small-scale farmers through municipal infrastructure and procurement.
Key Proposals
- Establish State-Owned Housing, Roads, Security, Cleaning, Horticulture, and Landscaping Companies to create millions of jobs.
- Compel all spheres of government to procure a minimum of 80% of goods and services from local producers.
- Declare township areas as special tax-free economic zones, requiring investors to create a minimum of 2,000 full-time jobs per factory.
- Protect the right of street hawkers and informal traders, building municipal markets and storage facilities for them.
- Build and support state-owned trading and retail platforms in every municipality.
- Impose a quota of 60% on all shops to sell locally produced goods and products.
- Construct and maintain central abattoirs and marketplaces in every municipality/ward to support local producers.
- Decentralize Government Youth Agencies to community offices to inform youth on career and employment opportunities.
The EFF's land reform policy is fundamentally based on the expropriation of land without compensation, with the state becoming the custodian of all land in South Africa for equitable redistribution. They aim to amend the constitution to facilitate this, introduce limitations on land size, and prioritize the distribution of land to black people, women, and youth for residential, industrial, and agricultural purposes, including addressing urban land poverty by releasing state land for housing.
Key Proposals
- Reintroduce the motion to amend the constitution to permit expropriation of land without compensation.
- Make the State the custodian of all South African land, mineral resources, and water.
- Fast-track the distribution of land, aiming to transfer 50% of land to black people within five years.
- Address urban land poverty by releasing state land and abandoned buildings for housing purposes.
- Introduce restrictions on foreign land ownership and limitations on the size of land individuals can own.
- Prioritize women and young people in the allocation of land use rights.
- Clarify the land administration powers of traditional leadership to limit contestation with municipalities on land use rights.
- Establish a Land Ombudsman to investigate and rule on land disputes between people and the State.
The EFF prioritizes the development of state-owned municipal transport networks and infrastructure, including establishing state-owned companies for road and rail construction. They plan to significantly expand and upgrade public transport railway lines, build taxi and bus terminals at hospitals and educational institutions, and subsidize fares for vulnerable groups. While allowing for some private sector involvement through BOT models, the overarching goal is state control and provision of transport services.
Key Proposals
- Establish state-owned roads and rail network construction companies.
- Pave (Tar) at least 10,000km of National Road Infrastructure and all roads connecting cities, townships, and villages by 2028.
- Eradicate all potholes on major municipal and provincial roads by 2028.
- Upgrade and refurbish all current public transport railway lines by 2027, increasing carriage numbers.
- Build a taxi and bus terminal at every hospital by 2027.
- Provide scholar transport for learners and subsidize public transport fares for senior citizens and students.
- Ensure each institution of higher learning is connected to a railway line or has a taxi and bus terminal.
- Establishment of the Ekurhuleni Roads Agency for insourcing roadworks and stormwater drainage.
The EFF's core ideology is revolutionary socialism and Pan-Africanism, advocating for economic emancipation, land expropriation without compensation, and nationalization of strategic sectors. They explicitly reject the 1994 political settlement as incomplete and aim for a complete decolonization of national symbols and public spaces, including changing all colonial/apartheid-linked names. Globally, they adopt an anti-imperialist stance, supporting African integration, free movement across the continent, and aligning with countries like Russia while opposing Western influence.
Key Proposals
- Expropriation of South Africa’s land without compensation and nationalization of mines, banks, and other strategic sectors.
- Massive development of the African economy and advocating for a move from reconciliation to justice on the entire continent.
- Change the National Anthem to the original Nkosi Sikelela I Afrika.
- Change the names of every road, natural attraction, building, or asset with direct links to the colonial or apartheid period by 2029.
- Advocate for the AU Free Movement of People Agreement and the implementation of the African Passport.
- Support Palestinians' right to self-determination and advocate for the removal of all foreign military bases on African soil.
- Align with Russia against NATO in the Ukraine conflict, viewing it as anti-imperialist.
- Invest significantly in African economic development, including integrated high-speed train networks connecting African capitals.
The EFF strongly advocates for state-led and in-sourced municipal provision of basic services, aiming to discontinue private ownership of bulk water infrastructure and insource waste collection. They commit to providing free basic water and sanitation to indigent households and social grant recipients, while also investing heavily in upgrading and maintaining municipal infrastructure.
Key Proposals
- Discontinue private ownership of bulk water infrastructure by 2025.
- Insourcing of all hazardous waste collection in all provinces by 2027.
- Provide free basic water and electricity to indigent households and social grant recipients.
- Upgrade all aging and dysfunctional water infrastructure in all municipalities by 2026.
- Eradicate all bucket toilets by 2026 and ensure all households have access to flushing toilets.
- Establish a national water board for better coordination and integration of bulk water supply.
- Build a new recycling plant in each municipality by 2028.
- Ensure all public spaces have sufficient waste disposal bins and regular waste removal.