JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng — The Economic Freedom Fighters have declared their intention to field candidates in every single ward across South Africa as the 2026 local government elections draw closer, with Deputy President Godrich Gardee confirming a sweeping door-to-door mobilization drive designed to reshape the party’s ground game ahead of the November vote.
Speaking to journalists following the fifth session of the EFF’s Central Elections Task Force in Johannesburg, Gardee — who is simultaneously standing as the party’s mayoral candidate in Mbombela — revealed that the organization has wrapped up the initial stage of its electoral preparations and is now pivoting to what he described as a deeply personal, community-level outreach effort.
The newly launched second phase centers on direct voter engagement through face-to-face conversations at the household level. Rather than relying exclusively on large rallies and broad messaging, the party is deploying activists into residential neighborhoods to listen to citizens’ concerns and build grassroots support one doorstep at a time. Gardee characterized the operational shift as putting “boots on the ground,” with a sharp focus on the logistical demands of getting supporters to the polls on election day.
The figures Gardee shared underscore the sheer scale of the EFF’s ambitions. The party plans to contest 213 mayoral races and approximately 4,398 ward seats nationwide — a wall-to-wall deployment that would place an EFF candidate on virtually every street in the country.
Perhaps most striking was the party’s stated resolve to compete aggressively in areas long considered safe territory for rival political organizations. Gardee made clear that no community would be treated as out of reach, specifically singling out historically affluent suburbs such as Constantia and Stellenbosch as places where EFF candidates will appear on the ballot. The underlying message was unambiguous: traditional political boundaries and demographic assumptions will not deter the party’s nationwide expansion.
As the November countdown accelerates, the EFF’s pivot to hyper-local, person-to-person campaigning signals a significant escalation in what is shaping up to be one of the most fiercely contested local government election cycles in the country’s recent history.
