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The South African Communist Party (SACP) conveys its message of appreciation to the millions of South Africans who came out to register and update their voter details this past voter registration weekend ahead of the 2026 local government elections. We also acknowledge the efficiency demonstrated by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) during the registration period as well as other government institutions which assisted citizens in their registration.

The IEC’s report on Monday shows that the Commission recorded over 2.9 million registration transactions – an improvement from the 1.7 million transactions recorded during the voter registration weekend for the comparable election in 2021 – of which 477,174 were first-time registrations. A total of 28.5 million registered voters are now on the voters’ roll, about 55.25 per cent of whom are female.

The SACP is also heartened by young people who came out in their numbers, as a total 785,078 young people aged 29 or younger participated in the registration. We encourage more young people to actively engage their country in the governance of the country by voting in November, as they also have a role to protect and take forward the country’s democracy.

We thank all SACP volunteers who braved the cold weather across the country for their untiring work in the ongoing SACP elections campaign programme. We encourage them to continue listening to communities and assisting wherever possible as the SACP prepares for the elections.

The SACP urges the people of South Africa to again come out in the second voter registration weekend scheduled for 1–2 August 2026. To strengthen public trust and ensure that all votes are counted and accounted for, we also call upon the IEC to ensure that all its systems and technology operate efficiently to cope with the projected large volume of voters on 4 November. In the same vein, we call for government departments to take practical measures to assist communities that face registration and voting difficulties due to poor infrastructure, particularly in the rural areas, to enable them to exercise their democratic right to vote.

Issued by SACP