The People Shall Govern: Action Six of the ANC’s Manifesto, Explained

The principle the movement was built on

The Freedom Charter’s first demand, written in 1955 at Kliptown, is four words: The People Shall Govern. It is the founding principle of the African National Congress, and it is the title the movement’s 2026 manifesto gives to the action area that closes its local government programme: community participation and effective communication.

This is the eighth and final piece in The People’s Register’s Masakhe series, after the 100-days timeline, the 8% maintenance rule, the one-million opportunities, the safety forums, the unfunded budgets and the capable government explainer. Action Six is the foundation the others rest on: a municipality that does not listen cannot deliver, and a community that is not heard cannot hold it to account.

The manifesto’s language is the movement’s own: local government belongs to the people, communities must have a real voice in decisions that affect their lives, and participation must be continuous, not an event before an election. The instruments that follow give the principle a calendar, a reference number and a deadline.

What Action Six promises

The action area’s measurable commitments:

Alongside these, the action area commits to structured participation for women, youth, students, workers, children, families, older persons and persons with disabilities, to regular business and investor platforms, and to the expansion of ANC Service Delivery War Rooms that track issues raised by communities and identify recurring problems.

The two-day clock on every complaint

The manifesto’s most immediately felt commitment is also its most specific. Every complaint, logged through any channel, receives a reference number and an acknowledgement within two working days. The system is a single municipal customer-care platform that works across WhatsApp, digital forms, telephone, SMS and in-person visits.

Two working days is a standard a resident can hold. It is not the time to resolve the complaint, which varies by complexity, but the time to receive a reference number and know the complaint is in the system. The manifesto commits to recording, tracking and reporting every complaint through to resolution, with the case data published.

For a metro where residents have reported logging the same water leak three times without a reference number, the difference between an acknowledged complaint and a tracked one is the difference between a service request and a hope.

The ward committee, rebuilt

The manifesto’s boldest structural commitment in this action area is to move beyond the uniform ward committee model. The one-size-fits-all system, the manifesto acknowledges, distorts and weakens public participation. In its place, a differentiated model that incorporates sub-councils, village forums, traditional councils and resident associations, each suited to the community it serves.

The ward committee is not abolished. It is strengthened, with a functioning target for every ward by 2031, and with a mandate that goes beyond consultation to active partnership in the Integrated Development Plan, the budget and service monitoring. The manifesto also commits to national minimum standards for notice, administration, referrals and feedback, so that participation quality does not depend on which municipality a resident happens to live in.

For ANC councillors specifically, the commitments are monthly public ward meetings, quarterly public reports on municipal performance, and participation in the performance assessments Action Five establishes. The councillor who does not meet the community does not meet the standard.

The Imbizo, and the movement’s listening tradition

The Mayoral Community Imbizo, held at least twice a year, carries a tradition that runs from the consultative gatherings of the movement’s exile years through the presidential imbizos of the democratic era. The imbizo is not a press conference. It is a forum where the mayor sits before residents, hears what they have to say, and answers.

The manifesto pairs the imbizo with continuous civic education, under the Department of Cooperative Governance and the Electoral Commission, so that participation is informed as well as frequent. It commits to multilingual publication of budgets, procurement information, council decisions, projects, planned maintenance and service interruptions, so that the information a resident needs to participate is the information they can actually access.

The War Room, and the movement’s own accountability

The ANC Service Delivery War Rooms and the ANC Service Delivery Line are the movement’s internal accountability system, expanded in the manifesto to track issues raised by communities, identify recurring problems and intervene where municipalities fail to respond. The War Room is not a substitute for the municipal customer-care system. It is the movement’s own channel, running alongside the state’s, because the ANC holds its public representatives to account before the electorate does.

This is the organisational discipline Action Five established as a governance commitment, applied to the communication commitments of Action Six. The councillor who ignores a resident’s complaint may not face the electorate for four years. The War Room’s tracking system does not wait.

The Bay’s test

Nelson Mandela Bay’s 60 wards, across six clusters from Molly Blackburn to Zola Nqini, are the terrain Action Six was written for. The metro’s tradition of community organisation, from the civic movement of the 1980s through the voter registration drive this publication documented, is the foundation the action area builds on.

The first test is the ward meeting: does every councillor hold one, monthly, with a published time and place? The second is the complaint: when a resident logs a water leak through the municipality’s WhatsApp number, do they receive a reference number within two working days? The third is the Imbizo: does the mayor sit before residents twice a year, and answer?

Each is a calendar entry, a reference number and a date. This publication will check them, because the people shall govern, and the people deserve to know whether the instruments of their governing are working.

Sources and further reading

This explainer is based on the ANC’s 2026 Local Government Elections Manifesto, Masakhe: Let Us Build, Action Six (pages 49 to 53), and on this desk’s commitment-by-commitment review of the document. The series context draws on the preceding seven pieces in this publication’s Masakhe coverage.

• Download the manifesto: Masakhe, Let Us Build (PDF, 65 pages)
• The People’s Register: Capable, Ethical Government, Action Five Explained
• The People’s Register: What Masakhe’s First 100 Days Will Look Like in Your Ward