The 2026 local government election results are set to be officially announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday, 8 November, at 6pm, and whether that announcement proceeds unchallenged is now an open question. The uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party has refused to rule out taking the outcome to the Electoral Court.
The party laid out its posture on Saturday at the KwaZulu-Natal Operations Results Centre in Durban, where senior leaders briefed journalists on the state of their concerns. The operational picture they described was one of a complaints pipeline still being triaged. Dali Mpofu, speaking for the party, said the leadership would first assess the numerous complaints received from members and supporters, which range in seriousness, before deciding whether any warranted legal action.
“Obviously, the more serious ones, if they are not addressed, there’s no other resort but to go to the Electoral Court. We are not excluding that option. But as we speak now, we are not preparing papers for that kind of thing,” Mpofu said.
He was careful to distinguish between the current posture and a final decision. “However, we can’t rule anything out because our people on the ground are really angry about some of the discrepancies and irregularities that have happened. So, the leadership sitting here will assess the seriousness of the cases,” he added.
The party’s first formal step through official channels came on Saturday night, when it lodged a Section 65 formal objection with the Electoral Commission (IEC) over possible irregularities in the eThekwini metro, where it failed to secure an outright majority. That objection is the concrete administrative action taken so far. The court route remains contingent on how the leadership judges the complaints.
The stakes are considerable given the party’s recent track record at the ballot box. In the 2024 national and provincial elections, the MK party emerged as a major political force, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, where it took 45.3% of the provincial vote and won 37 of the 80 seats in the provincial legislature. It did not, however, join the governing coalition, partly because it was occupied with challenging the outcomes of the general elections at the time, citing technical glitches in the IEC’s system.
Its first outing in local government elections came on 4 November, and the numbers were substantial: more than 3.7 million votes nationally, or 9.8% of the total. In KwaZulu-Natal it again led the field, winning over 34% of the vote. The eThekwini metro, though, remained out of outright reach, and it is there that the party’s formal concerns about irregularities have crystallised.
First deputy president Duduzane Zuma echoed Mpofu’s position, framing the party’s acceptance of results as conditional on the integrity of the process itself. “We will accept the results only if the process is free and fair. If we notice any glitches, any shenanigans, we will raise them. And it’s not us as leaders; it’s the people on the ground [who have raised the issues],” he said.
Zuma also turned the party’s conduct during the electoral process into a demand for reciprocal treatment from the commission. “We have not been unruly. We have been respectful of protocol. We have been respectful in our communication. We expect the same from the IEC. We cannot be the only ones accepting, accepting. The IEC also needs to meet us somewhere,” he said.
Meanwhile, what happens next depends on two parallel tracks. The first is administrative: the Section 65 objection lodged with the IEC over eThekwini, which puts the onus on the commission to process and respond. The second is legal: the leadership’s assessment of the more serious complaints, which, if unresolved, could end up before the Electoral Court. Mpofu’s formulation leaves both doors open, with no papers currently being prepared but nothing excluded.
For now, the results announcement remains scheduled for Sunday evening. Whether it closes the electoral cycle or opens a new round of contestation will be determined by how the party’s leadership weighs the complaints it says are still coming in from the ground.