By Lebone Rodah Mosima
Declared donations to South African political parties surged to R97.2 million in the first three months of 2026, with the DA accounting for almost 60% of the total as parties begin mobilising for the 4 November local government elections.
The Electoral Commission said on Sunday five parties declared donations for the fourth quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, covering the period from 1 January to 31 March.
The DA declared R57.3 million, followed by RISE Mzansi with R30 million and ActionSA with R9.9 million. The Alliance of Citizens for Change declared R440,500, while Build One South Africa declared R113,794.60.
The latest figure is a big increase from the third quarter, when five parties declared a little more than R35 million and the DA again received the largest share, at more than R31 million.
The IEC said the latest declarations “provide an early indication of intensified political fundraising and mobilisation associated with the commencement of an election period”.
The November vote is expected to test the ANC after it fell below 50% in the 2021 local government elections and then lost its parliamentary majority in the 2024 national elections.
The DA’s R57.3 million declaration comprised R54.9 million in monetary donations and R2.4 million in in-kind donations.
The IEC said the party received major donations of between R10 million and R13 million from regular donors including Main Street 1564 Pty Ltd, Fynbos Ekwiteit (Pty) Ltd, Ms M Slack and Fynbos Kapitaal Proprietary Limited.
Other major DA donations included R4 million from G Ryan, R3 million from D Barnes and R1.27 million from the Danish Liberal Democracy Programme.
The IEC said foreign-linked donations from the Danish Liberal Democracy Programme and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation “appear to be in line with permissible foreign donations”.
RISE Mzansi’s R30 million declaration came from an entity called “We Are The People” and arose from the conversion of a previous loan into a donation.
The IEC said the declaration constituted “one of the largest single declarations made since the commencement of the Political Funding Act”, but said it would engage the party to clarify the terms of the conversion and assess compliance with the Act.
ActionSA declared R9.9 million in monetary donations, including R5 million from businessman Martin Moshal, R1 million each from Siyaya Free to Air TV (Pty) Ltd and African Equity Corporation (Pty) Ltd, and about R2.9 million in cumulative donations from party leader Herman Mashaba.
The ANC did not appear among the five parties listed as having declared donations for the reporting period, but the IEC said it had received donor declarations indicating R770,000 in donations to ANC structures that had not been acknowledged or declared by the party at the time of publication.
These included R500,000 from Valumax Projects to the ANC’s Ekurhuleni branch on March 20 and R270,000 from Captrust Investments (Pty) Ltd to the ANC Veterans League on April 16.
The IEC also said the ANC made two late declarations amounting to R10.5 million, comprising R501,230.21 from Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and R10 million from Botho Botho Commercial Enterprises (Pty) Ltd. It said it had issued the ANC with a directive to submit representations regarding the late declarations.
The Electoral Commission said the reporting cycle continued under the revised disclosure framework, which increased the disclosure threshold from R100,000 to R200,000 and the annual upper donation limit from R15 million to R30 million.
Political funding watchdog My Vote Counts criticised the change when it was published in the Government Gazette, saying it would result in “greater secrecy” in political funding.
The Multi-Party Democracy Fund received R4.5 million during the quarter, including R3 million from VodacomSA and R1.5 million from Standard Bank.
“The size and magnitude of the declarations demonstrate that the election season is firmly under way,” the IEC said.
“The Electoral Commission anticipates that both the value and volume of donations will continue to increase, potentially exponentially, as the election date approaches and political campaigning intensifies.”
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