Joburg pushes most buttons: Q2 tracker reveals online flashpoints in South Africa’s cities
By Yossabel Chetty, CINIA Researcher.
Date Range: 01/04/2026 – 30/06/2026
Covering the second quarter of the year, this report focuses on developing campaign issues broadcast on social media by political parties. Understanding online narratives and how that translates to ground action, is relevant from an information integrity perspective.
An election filter was applied to content about the eight metropoles, as a large volume of conversation often plays out daily about these areas across social media. The filter allowed for a more focused look at what political parties and candidates are promising and who they might be targeting.
See CINIA’s First Quarter Report here: Sovereignty, Scarcity, and Scandals: Q1 tracker reveals social media flashpoints in the 2026 vote
Metro Overview
To position the flow of this report, the graph below indicates the percentage volume of the conversation that was captured for each metropole. Shortened versions of the names (like JHB for Johannesburg) and language-specific names (like iKapa for Cape Town) were all tracked and tagged by the English name of the metropole for comparison.
Figure 1: Mention volumes of metropoles by tag share.
Conversations from the eight metros are analysed collectively before diving deeper into each individually, starting with the metropole with the highest volume of conversation.
The larger half of the conversation volume (based on this dataset) was from Johannesburg (36.84%), followed by Tshwane (21.08%), the City of Cape Town (19.17%) and Ekurhuleni (9.15%). eThekwini is usually a metropole that features heavily when looking at datasets in South Africa. However, in this dataset it falls into the lower 50% with 8.15% of the mentions. This means that while people refer to Durban and its surrounding centres frequently across other topics, at present there is less conversation about local government elections taking place here than about other parts of the country.
Figure 2 below shows the volume of mentions in the dataset displayed over the three months of the second quarter. There were four distinct peaks in the conversation from Tshwane, Johannesburg, eThekwini and the City of Cape Town.
Figure 2: Time-series analysis of mentions in time by metro tags.
In Tshwane, the peak was driven by an X post and a Facebook post from news platform eNCA. Both posts were made on 09 May 2026 and were about ActionSA’s choice for mayoral candidate, Dr. Nasiphi Moya. Moya is currently the mayor of Tshwane, a position that she has held since 2024 as a member of a multi-party coalition government. The coalition consists of ActionSA, the ANC, EFF, ACDP, AIC, DOP, PA, PAC, ATM and GOOD. It is interesting to note that ActionSA is able to work with Pan African parties like the PAC and EFF in Tshwane, given ActionSA’s strong anti-foreigner sentiment in other parts of the country, which often targets African and Asian foreigners.
A post by the DA also drove conversation in the Tshwane peak as it posted about its support of Cilliers Brink to “take Tshwane back from corrupt officials”.
In Johannesburg, the peak took place in the week of the State of the City Address. Posts by Helen Zille and Herman Mashaba, mayoral candidates for the DA and ActionSA respectively, drove this peak in the dataset. On 20 May 2026, Zille expressed that the address showed “no vision, no plan, no accountability”. On 23 May 2026, Mashaba posted ActionSA’s Joburg Campaign Governance Team. Former leader of Operation Dudula, a movement that is known for sharing unverified content about African and Asian foreigners on social media, Zandile Dabula was announced as the potential head of Human Settlements in a Mashaba-run government.
Figure 3: ActionSA online poster that drove the first peak in Johannesburg.
On 21 May 2026, conversation also peaked in eThekwini. This is because of an SABC news post on Facebook about Mayor Cyril Xaba, who confirmed that all the foreign nationals that were transported for verification in Durban were in the country legally following a Home Affairs screening process. The pressure to verify foreigners in this way came from groups like Operation Dudula and March and March who claim that undocumented foreigners are the reason for many of the country’s service delivery failures.
The spike in conversation in the City of Cape Town was also driven by the DA and news about ActionSA. On 13 June, Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, announced that he will be standing again as DA mayoral candidate. His campaign is based on “🚔 Stronger policing 👷♂️ More jobs 💧 Reliable, affordable services 🏠 More affordable homes 🧹 Cleaner public spaces”. On the same day, @SABCNews posted on X that Mashaba had announced Dereleen James as the party’s mayoral candidate in Cape Town.
A further spike can be observed for Johannesburg in the last week of the reporting period. Sorted by the number of likes, this was driven by a post by Zille about transport infrastructure in the metro that takes a swing at Transport MMC, Kenny Kunene, of the Patriotic Alliance. An interview with Mashaba by the Mail & Guardian also drove conversation about Johannesburg in this spike. The mayoral candidate focused on undocumented persons in his campaign, stating that “No Pakistani will run a shop under my administration”.
Top Hashtags
The top hashtags, based on the number of times they appeared in the tagged dataset, are shown in table 1 below. The number of times they appeared is also shown along with a link to the most liked post that contained this hashtag and the political party that is driving the hashtag.
| Hashtag | Number of times it appeared | URL to top post | Party |
| #lge2026 | 342 | https://www.facebook.com/reel/1017221784502048 | ANC |
| #registertovoteeff | 332 | https://www.facebook.com/306405021533897/posts/1393103252864063 | EFF |
| #operationfixjoburg | 220 | https://www.facebook.com/reel/981615514386939 | ActionSA |
| #registertovoteanc | 210 | https://www.facebook.com/reel/1017221784502048 | ANC |
| #lukhona4joburgmayor | 154 | https://x.com/LukhonaMnguni/status/2058132731691721189 | Rise Mzansi. |
| #mashabaformayor | 152 | https://www.facebook.com/284704807092691/posts/1357757839787377 | ActionSA |
While posts by the ANC don’t appear to be driving the spike in the broad conversation, the party’s campaign hashtags appeared more frequently than the posts that were more liked in terms of online engagements. It is important to highlight this as popularity on social media platforms can be displayed in various ways. Firstly, posts that are amplified through paid promotion often receive lots of likes and appear popular due to the amplification that is paid for. Then, the number of people discussing a topic in a coordinated way with hashtag identifiers is another way to determine a popular or trending topic. At a first glance of this municipal elections dataset, one may quickly conclude that the ANC are not performing well as they don’t feature in the top performing content as frequently as the DA, EFF and ActionSA. However, while content about the ANC may not perform as well, its campaign hashtags are more frequently mentioned, suggesting a quantity vs quality approach to the party’s online advertising.
The best-performing post by the EFF with its register to vote hashtag was an image of Helen Zille with the claim that “White privilege is what makes people think a 75-year-old gogo can bring services to Jhb when she is 10 years past retirement age.” The party used the image to draw attention to the highest working age in the country and how the system is different for a “black gogo” of the same age.
Figure 4: EFF poster about the retirement age and how it is not applied equally across sectors (although race appears to be positioned as the motivator for the retirement age from the party).
Another candidate whose online campaign performed well is Rise Mzansi mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Lukhona Mnguni. His campaign focuses on “restoring the soul of Johannesburg” alongside #lukhona4joburgmayor, #voteamaselout is a campaign hashtag that he is also driving. Amasela is an isiZulu and isiXhosa word meaning “thieves”. His campaign promises to realise a clean and safe Johannesburg through new leadership.
#MashabaForMayor also mentions safety in Johannesburg. In this ActionSA post with the hashtag that received more than 3 300 likes, the poster claims that the current Johannesburg mayor recruited 0 officers while Mashaba is said to have recruited 1 500 JMPD officers when he was mayor of Johannesburg and that in 5 years, he promises to recruit 2 500 more. The statement that Mashaba recruited 1 500 police officers for the Johannesburg metro is factually correct. During his time as mayor for the DA between 2016 and 2019, he initiated a public safety drive that recruited and trained a batch of 1 500 new JMPD officers.
Dada Morero’s record of 0 is technically accurate and is used as political hyperbole to highlight the current administration’s service delivery challenges, including financial strain on the metro. A budget was initially allocated by the City of Johannesburg under Morero’s leadership to recruit 500 JMPD trainees. However, in June 2026, the intake was cancelled due to allegations by the city of corruption and nepotism in the recruitment process.
Figure 5: #mashabaformayor campaign poster by ActionSA in June 2026
Johannesburg
The most frequently used word in the Johannesburg dataset is “mayor”. Drilling down to the posts that contain this word shows conversation that is mostly by or about mayoral candidates Herman Mashaba, Helen Zille and Mayor Dada Morero. Zille appears most frequently in 865 mentions, with Mashaba close behind in 840 mentions and Morero appearing in 529 mentions in the dataset.
Figure 6 below is a keyword cloud of the mentions of both the mayoral candidates and the current mayor. While Dada Morero may not be the ANC’s candidate for Johannesburg in 2026, this reporting period does not cover the ANC’s announcement of its candidate. Positioning these keyword clouds next to each other allows for a comparison of the focus areas of these candidates or what others are talking about when they are mentioned.
Figure 6: Keyword clouds drilled down from “mayor” that focus on Helen Zille (DA), Herman Mashaba (ActionSA) and Dada Morero (ANC)
For Helen Zille, the main topics among these posts are about her mayoral campaign, including her strategies, public appearances and statements. Several posts also discuss controversies about Zille, including accusations of racism, white supremacy and her stance on the Gaza genocide ICJ case. Johannesburg’s collapsing infrastructure and financial crisis are mentioned multiple times along with political rivalry between Zille, the DA and other candidates and parties. Mentions also include the DA’s legal actions against the City of Johannesburg and its strategies to improve service delivery and governance.
The main topics for and about Mashaba look a bit different. While these posts also discuss the infrastructure and service delivery issues, discussions about immigration and xenophobia feature prominently. Mashaba’s campaign activities include promises like establishing a police unit that is dedicated to addressing illegal immigration and crime. Some posts and comments reflect on Mashaba’s previous tenure as mayor with mixed opinions on his leadership and its impact on Johannesburg.
Among the posts that mention Morero, there are multiple mentions of Johannesburg’s financial crisis, including the city’s debt to Eskom, the R10.3 billion wage increase and potential suspension of state funding by the national treasury. Posts discuss service delivery operations such as the demolition of illegal structures and infrastructure issues such as pothole repairs and water supply. Some city development plans are discussed among these posts, including plans for digital transformation by 2027 and initiatives to clean up and improve the city environment.
Tshwane
Online, based on hashtags, the race for Tshwane appears to be driven by the ANC (#registertovoteanc and #lge2026), the EFF (#registertovoteeff and #effjune16rally) and ActionSA (#letsfixtshwane and #5moreyears). ActionSA’s 5 more years campaign is for the current mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya, who leads a coalition in the city.
Parties like ActionSA and the DA are focusing on improving service delivery, rebuilding infrastructure and addressing issues like potholes, water supply and electricity. Corruption is significant with parties like the DA and ActionSA emphasising the need to crack down and ensure accountability. There are mentions of scandals involving city officials and calls for investigation into the tender processes.
Immigration and border security are contentious, particularly between parties like Action SA and the EFF. ActionSA in particular has been conducting raids and enforcing by-laws to address illegal immigration in Tshwane. The EFF strongly condemned the anti-immigration protests that took place across the country in June, explicitly warning against xenophobia and the scapegoating of foreigners for South Africa’s economic struggles. At a Youth Day rally in Tshwane, the EFF stressed the need for African unity and urged citizens to participate in elections instead of unrest.
City of Cape Town
Like the City of Johannesburg, “mayor” is also the most frequently used word in the Cape Town dataset. However, drilling down from this word reveals only one candidate’s name, Geordin Hill Lewis. 821 mentions of Hill-Lewis were returned, mostly about his election as new DA leader and his candidacy as mayor of Cape Town. There are several posts about infrastructure projects in Cape Town, like the upgrade to the Macassar Wastewater Treatment works and investment in water purification infrastructure. Affordable housing projects like the Salt River Market site are also mentioned among the Hill-Lewis posts and there are mentions of the Cape Town tariffs that were ruled unlawful by the Western Cape High Court.
Among the top hashtags, #lge2026 is being driven by multiple parties, including the GOOD party, ANC and the MK Party. The GOOD party used the hashtag to announce its mayoral candidate, Brett Herron. In posts by the party’s page, Herron is seen visiting communities like Elsie’s River, Wesbank and Ruyterwacht. Safe and dignified housing appears to be a key campaign issue of the GOOD party. For the ANC, the hashtag was used to advertise a visit by Gwede Mantashe to a church service in Khayelitsha. The encouragement to vote by the party also included the hashtag #ANCInChurch. The MK Party used the hashtag to share details about its Western Cape mobilisation activation held in Delft, where Jacob Zuma gave the keynote address. None of these posts performed well in terms of engagements, with none reaching more than 100 likes at the time of this report.
The EFF campaigned in the Western Cape to encourage mass voter registration. This was not discussed much online, but the party did share pictures and names of candidates in places like Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha and Salt River. In Gugulethu however, it shared that the purpose of the visit was also to assess damage caused by the overflow of poorly maintained sewerage.
Trying to speak to both Afrikaans and English voters, Vryheidsfront Plus discussed civic issues in lengthy, bi-lingual posts. The party appeared among the top authors for the City of Cape Town; however, it isn’t clear yet from the dataset what campaign issues they’re focused.
Ekurhuleni
The city of Ekurhuleni appears to be in crisis mode. In April, ActionSA, the DA, EFF and VF Plus walked out of a council sitting because officials, including mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, were absent. A few weeks later, Xhakaza revealed that the City pays R12.7 million annually to suspended officials. Information and allegations of corruption featured prominently under the word mayor as city manager, Kagiso Lerutla, was suspended as he faces charges of fraud and defeating the ends of justice.
Another name that featured under mayor for Ekurhuleni is ActionSA local elections candidate, Xolani Khumalo. A post by the ActionSA account about Khumalo being found not guilty and now having time to focus on his mayoral campaign achieved more than 21 000 engagements. Khumalo’s court appearance may have been politically motivated, the party claimed, due to anti-drug raids that the media personality had undertaken in Katlehong. Khumalo, who presents a hard-hitting reality show on DStv where he teams up with law enforcement to conduct real-time raids, was announced as mayoral candidate in October 2025. In January 2026, charges of assault were laid and he handed himself in to police.
In May, Khumalo’s media campaign focused on a call for the closure of Spaza Shops across the country until alleged suspects of the kidnapping of a local spaza shop owner, Mazwi Kubheka, were brought to justice. A day after SAPS announced that they would be bringing in crime intelligence to assist with the investigation, Khubeka handed himself in to the police saying that he was kidnapped and held for a month after a spaza shop dispute. Khubeka’s kidnapping sparked debate online about foreign spaza shop owners, with ActionSA and the ATM appearing at protests to request that police shut down spaza shops. Gauteng premier, Panyaza Lesufi announced the day after Khubeka handed himself in that both South Africans and foreign nationals were allegedly involved in the kidnapping. However, to date no arrests have been made. When asked by an eNCA reporter in an interview on 26 June 2026 what language the kidnappers were speaking, Khubeka responded “Zulu”.
A Facebook search of Mazwi Khubeka shows that he is a digital creator. The profile appears to belong to Khubeka as there are pictures of him and an embedded version of the eNCA interview on a post in which he thanks everyone who supported him while he was allegedly kidnapped. This is not the first time that a Vosloorus spaza shop owner has made claims of an attack by foreign spaza shop owners. The spaza shop owner in this case never appears to have provided proof of the threats when asked by the police to do so, yet in 2024 political parties and the media rushed to publicise his complaints. His allegations were used online by disinformation peddlers to claim that he was killed by a foreign spaza shop syndicate. Investigators for CINIA found in 2025 that he was still alive and well.
The DA is also running a campaign in Ekurhuleni for its mayoral candidate, Khathu Rasilingwane. The campaign focus for Rasilingwane is on poor delivery resulting from improper governance in the metro. For example, she draws attention to a road that is still not fixed, a R122 million ghost town in the metro and R2 billion that disappeared in Ekurhuleni due to an IT and billing scandal.
Both the EFF and ANC used #lge2026 for their campaigns. The ANC’s digital content focused on in-person visits made by Ramaphosa and other officials to the community. These photo ops were posted along with another campaign hashtag – #ANCWithThePeople. An EFF member ward 70 of Ekurhuleni used the LGE hashtag to discuss the lived reality of people in the area, which includes inequality, unemployment, landlessness and daily economic exclusion.
Ethekwini
Mentions about Durban or Ethekwini (including names of key towns and commercial hubs) made up less than 10% of the dataset. Conversations about the mayor mostly returned responses about current Mayor Cyril Xaba and his responses or actions relating to the handling of undocumented foreigners. Jacinta Ngobese Zuma, leader of the March and March vigilante group, featured among the posts that contained the word mayor. Between May and June, several anonymous accounts with names like “Castle Lager” (which is now closed) and “#Vote Umkhonto Wesizwe 2026 LGE” commented about the Durban mayor on posts made by Jacinta Zuma.
Figure 7: Comments about the eThekwini mayor made to March and March leader from anonymous accounts.
#registertovoteeff was among the top hashtags for the metro and much like in the City of Cape Town, the posts were accompanied by pictures of ground visits with party voting district (vd) coordinators. Two of these posts addressed an alleged lie that circulated claiming there was no EFF in eThekwini. A few of the posts by the EFF KZN account used another campaign hashtag with these voter registration posts – #VictoryOrDeath.
#anc was also among the top hashtags. However, these were not from the political party and instead appear to be a campaign by IOL news on Facebook and on X.
Nelson Mandela Bay
The DA has been actively campaigning in Nelson Mandela Bay. Retief Odendaal, the DA’s mayoral candidate, has been engaging with residents and outlining plans to make the area safe and improve service delivery and to take a stand against race quotas, which the party claims lock people out of jobs. Odendaal also addressed the media to say that the party will not enter a coalition with the EFF or the ANC if it fails to secure a majority. Odendaal appears to be broadly campaigning on fighting crime, creating jobs and ending corruption.
The EFF’s Sinawo Thambo has been engaging with the community. The party’s focus has been on illegal evictions and service delivery failures. However, rather than directing these concerns at the ANC leadership in the metro, they have directed these concerns at the DA’s Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Basic Education in the Government of National Unity.
In Gqeberha, ActionSA leveraged Xolani Khumalo’s Sizok’Thola fame as he joined a march in the city against crime, drugs and illegal immigration. ActionSA parliamentary leader Athol Trollip appears to be driving most of the conversation about the party.
The ATM party chose to launch its manifesto in KuGompo City, a location that was the seat of intense flareups between the local South African and Nigerian communities earlier in the year, in which the ATM was heavily involved. The party invited the Minister of Labour to join the launch as its focus is on the eradication of unemployment ahead of the elections.
Mangaung
The ANC, EFF and the DA are actively involved in voter registration drives, emphasising the importance of participating in the upcoming elections. The DA and EFF are also focusing on corruption within the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, following allegations made against the husband of the Deputy Mayor, and other officials. The DA’s candidate in Mangaung, Werner Pretorius, set out a plan to restore basic service delivery, stop corruption and improve safety.
The Deputy Mayor’s husband is Nigerian and he has been accused of harbouring undocumented foreigners. Organisations like the Operation Dudula movement and Patriotic News used this information to express concerns about the ruling party and illegal immigration. A parody news account positioned the Mangaung Municipality as “captured through marriage to a Nigerian Drug Dealer King Pin”.
Buffalo City
Mentions about Buffalo City and its most populated towns returned fewer than 200 mentions in the dataset. Among the posts, the EFF Youth Command actively organised to encourage youth participation in the elections. The EFF also called for the resignation of Buffalo City Mayor, Princess Faku, regarding claims of a fraudulent registration at the University of Fort Hare.
*As we approach the November 4 local elections, these CINIA reports will be produced monthly, allowing for a more detailed tracking of party campaign issues. If you wish to republish this report, or parts of it, you may do so in the public interest, without undue editing, and with full credit and a link back to the CINIA website.
