JOHANNESBURG, Gauteng — Al Jama-ah is launching its largest-ever bid in the 2026 South African local government elections, fielding candidates in 1,000 wards spanning all nine provinces as the November 4 polling date rapidly approaches.
Party president and Deputy Minister of Social Development Ganief Hendricks confirmed the scale of the campaign, revealing that the party has grown its candidate roster from just 40 in the previous municipal cycle to 500 this year. In a significant ideological shift, Hendricks emphasized that approximately 80 percent of those candidates belong to faith communities other than Islam, underscoring the party’s evolution from a Muslim-focused organization into a multi-faith national platform drawing strong support from rural Christian communities.
Metro Mayoral Candidates Take Centre Stage
The party has rolled out high-profile mayoral candidates for several key metropolitan municipalities. In eThekwini, Salim Hassan has been named the party’s mayoral pick, with Hendricks personally traveling to the region for the announcement. The party currently holds a single seat on the eThekwini council — representing roughly 0.45 percent of the vote — but wields outsized influence by chairing the municipality’s economics committee and serving as a decisive balance-of-power bloc in coalition arrangements.
For the City of Johannesburg, Al Jama-ah has tapped Ashley Mama, a Soweto-born businessman and former ANC regional committee member who later built a career in corporate deal-making. Hendricks said the party consulted extensively with royal kingdoms and traditional leaders before selecting Mama, describing him as a trusted figure among Johannesburg’s entrepreneurial and business communities. The party’s messaging frames the choice as “Soweto rescuing Johannesburg.”
In Cape Town, Advocate Shameemah Dollie Salie — a former prosecutor and family advocate — was unveiled as the mayoral candidate. Rather than holding a conventional launch event, Salie insisted on going door-to-door in Bo-Kaap and Bonteheuwel, the Cape Flats community where she was raised and one of the first coloured townships established under the Group Areas Act.
The party also introduced Rudolph Mamabolo, a jazz pianist, as its mayoral candidate for the Tshwane municipality, where the campaign launch doubled as a community event addressing gender-based violence. Organized by the party’s youth league under leader Sirun, the open-air gathering invited men to publicly commit to defending women and condemning abuse.
Coalition Track Record and the “Al Jama-ah Effect”
Hendricks spent considerable time defending the party’s record in coalition governance, particularly its 18-month stint helping to stabilize the City of Johannesburg alongside 10 opposition parties. He credited former mayor Cababalo Kwamanda — now the party’s national strategist — with architecting the coalition framework that eventually became a model for the national Government of National Unity.
According to Hendricks, Al Jama-ah inherited a municipal bank account of R400 million from the preceding DA-led administration and handed over R4 billion when it departed. He further claimed the coalition generated R1.2 billion in new revenue from outside Johannesburg by brokering solar electricity sales to other municipalities, secured clean audits throughout its tenure, constructed three power stations, signed South Africa’s first smart-city agreement, and converted 100 young African graduates from temporary to permanent municipal positions.
The party’s Johannesburg tenure was not without controversy. Former mayor Thabo Ahmed served fewer than three months before resigning ahead of a no-confidence motion linked to an unresolved R9.5 billion financing deal. Hendricks explained that Ahmed had been asked by municipal officials to lend his presence to help secure favorable loan terms at 4 percent interest, but coalition partners objected to the lack of prior consultation. Hendricks said he personally instructed Ahmed to step down to preserve the broader coalition, despite a plea from the provincial premier to keep him in office.
The party also faced scrutiny over the deadly Lilian Ngoyi and Bree Street infrastructure collapse and the tragic Wendiso building fire that killed 76 people — both occurring during its period of coalition governance. Hendricks attributed the infrastructure failures to decades of deferred maintenance by successive ANC, DA, and ActionSA administrations, noting that the CBD is cleaned twice daily but remains undermined by undisciplined informal trading activity.
Immigration Reform and Regularization Proposal
On the national policy front, Hendricks — who serves on the interministerial committee on immigration and two cabinet clusters — outlined a controversial proposal to regularize an estimated one million undocumented migrants whose visa extension applications have languished in Home Affairs backlogs for up to three years. He stressed that these individuals had entered the country legally and paid approximately R1,800 in application fees, only to be left in limbo.
Hendricks positioned the proposal as a humanitarian alternative to mass repatriation, pointing out that many affected families have lived in South Africa for up to two decades, with children enrolled in local schools. He invoked South Africa’s obligations under the African Children’s Charter and drew historical parallels to the hospitality extended by frontline states such as Algeria and Nigeria to South African exiles during the apartheid era.
He also noted that the DA’s Home Affairs minister had already granted amnesty to Mozambican and Zimbabwean nationals through July of next year, arguing that regularization is not a novel concept. Hendricks described himself as a “lone voice” in cabinet on the issue but said the president welcomed the diversity of views and had received the party’s alternative immigration policy framework.
Infrastructure, Land Tenure, and Opposition Criticism
Looking ahead, Hendricks said Al Jama-ah’s infrastructure strategy centers on youth leadership and private-sector partnerships, citing the Jozi My Jozi initiative — a coalition of nearly 50 private companies, including Anglo American, that has revitalized seven Johannesburg precincts. The party has also pledged to grant land tenure to 10 million shack dwellers on the land they currently occupy, a policy Hendricks said has already been approved in Johannesburg but remains unimplemented.
Hendricks directed sharp criticism at the DA, referencing what he described as a recent Public Protector and Constitutional Court finding — identified as report number 12 — alleging service delivery and human rights violations in Cape Town’s Sea Point and Khayelitsha areas. He urged voters to review the report and warned that the DA’s track record in the Western Cape should disqualify it from governing Johannesburg.
Coalition Preferences and Election Outlook
With 30 days remaining until the November 4 vote, Hendricks made clear that Al Jama-ah intends to continue playing a kingmaker role in coalition municipalities. He said the party would prioritize alliances with parties rooted in the liberation struggle, while remaining open to partnering with other organizations that have demonstrated sufficient transformation. He categorically ruled out any coalition with the DA.
Hendricks also outlined the party’s broader continental vision, advocating for a United States of Africa and the removal of trade tariffs across the continent through the African Continental Free Trade Area, which he argued would make Africa more prosperous than the European Union and the Commonwealth combined.
As the campaign enters its final stretch, Al Jama-ah’s blend of cultural diplomacy — including recent visits to monarchs in the Eastern Cape and traditional leaders in Hlanganani — and hard-nosed coalition politics positions the party as a small but strategically pivotal force in what promises to be a fiercely contested local government election.
