More than 250 local elections will be held in each one of South Africa’s municipalities on 1 November. More than 10 000 councillors have to be elected. For this reason, more than 95,000 candidates have been nominated, including more than 1 500 independent candidates. How they have communicated it to the public during their campaigns has been largely determined by their election manifestos, the media debates between the parties, their election advertisements and their impromptu comments during the campaign. The scale of the election

Though a ritual, elections yield new insights about the state of the citizenry and the political elite. Life changes, either for the better or worse. Electoral outcomes are a statement about how citizens feel at that moment and signal their inclination to take charge of their future. The level of turnout and the political choices voters make indicate whether citizens have resigned themselves to their problems, or are actively seeking solutions. And the 2021 local government elections in South Africa are certainly more about

This article considers the socio-political and institutional context going into the 2021 local government elections. The Pandemic and the IEC The 2021 local government elections occur under unprecedented circumstances and in a constrained context. Faced with close on two years of pandemic conditions, and attendant state of disaster regulations and lockdowns, the normal preparatory activities for the elections by the IEC in terms of the normal electoral cycle were affected, as were the usual forms of outreach and campaigning by political parties to voters.