The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has declared that it is no longer merely participating in elections but is now seeking to contest for power, as the party launched its manifesto ahead of the November local government elections.
PAC leader and Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso launched the party’s 2026 local government election manifesto at the Jabulani Amphitheatre in Soweto on Saturday, where he sought to position the organisation as an alternative to municipalities plagued by corruption, incompetence and collapsing infrastructure.
The launch comes as the PAC attempts to revive its political fortunes ahead of the 4 November elections.
The party’s support has steadily declined since 1994, with years of internal infighting and leadership battles weakening the organisation.
Despite its diminished electoral presence, the PAC is now part of the Government of National Unity, with Nyhontso serving as Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development.
Addressing supporters on Saturday, Nyhontso said the PAC was ready to make another significant contribution to South Africa’s political future.
“The PAC that shook the country in 1960 is now ready and poised to make yet another momentous contribution,” Nyhontso said.
“This time, we’re not only participating, we’re contesting power in these elections.”
Nyhontso said the party was presenting itself as a partner for change rather than as a political “messiah”, promising what he described as a concrete programme to transform communities from the bottom up.
The PAC leader painted a bleak picture of the state of local government, pointing to dry taps, unreliable electricity, broken infrastructure, dark streets and sewage flowing through communities.
He said many municipalities were presiding over “systematic decay”, accusing local governments of failing communities after more than three decades of democracy.
Nyhontso said 18 of the country’s 213 municipalities were heavily indebted and unable to perform basic functions, while infrastructure maintenance backlogs and irregular, unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure continued to undermine service delivery.
“This is not an accident,” he said, describing it as evidence of what happens when municipalities are built to administer people rather than belong to them.
The PAC’s proposed solution places land at the centre of transforming local government and dismantling the spatial inequalities inherited from apartheid.
Nyhontso invoked PAC founding figure Robert Sobukwe, saying the land remained central to the struggle for the transformation of South Africa’s social and economic landscape.
“The land is the centrepiece of the struggle,” he said.
However, Nyhontso rejected what he described as “wild slogans and populist rhetoric” around land invasions and confiscation.
Instead, he said land reform should be systematic and properly planned, with municipalities releasing land for housing, schools, clinics and economic activity.
“Dignified housing must be built on land that the municipality actually controls and can release,” Nyhontso said.
He said this could help eliminate housing waiting lists stretching over decades, while also ensuring that communities had access to schools, health facilities and economic opportunities closer to where people lived.
The PAC also wants municipalities to release land for industrial and commercial activity, marketplaces, cooperatives, spaza shops, taxi ranks and informal traders.
Nyhontso said township and rural economies should move beyond being centres of consumption and instead become productive economic hubs.
“For the PAC, service delivery without economic empowerment is an incomplete transformation,” he said.
The party’s manifesto therefore seeks to position local government not only as a provider of basic services but as a platform through which communities can build sustainable livelihoods.
Nyhontso said municipalities should stop functioning as what he called “parasitic entities feeding on the sweat and toil of the people”.
The PAC, he said, wanted to transform townships and rural communities into economic hubs capable of supporting small businesses and eventually larger commercial and industrial enterprises.
Nyhontso also used the launch to argue that the PAC had governance experience, pointing to its participation in government and the Land Reform and Rural Development portfolio.
“We are not merely engaging in promises,” he said.
“We are part of governing and we do govern.”
The PAC’s manifesto also commits the party to a different culture of public office based on “patriotism, integrity, service, sacrifice, loyalty and commitment to excellence and duty”.
Whether the manifesto translates into a meaningful electoral revival, however, remains to be seen.
Nyhontso insisted on Saturday that the party was entering the elections with greater confidence than before.
“Our victory on 4 November will not be measured simply by the number of councillors that are elected under our banner,” he said.
The PAC will now have to convince voters that its promise to place land, economic empowerment and community-led development at the centre of local government can help restore its relevance in South Africa’s increasingly competitive political landscape.