ActionSA merges with more parties ahead of 2026 local government elections

ActionSA has announced it will merge with two more political parties: the Azanian Independent Community Movement (AICM) and the Creative Congress Movement (CCM). 

This follows a series of mergers with smaller parties over the past year, aimed at turning around its admittedly poor showing at the 2024 general elections, where it amassed 1.2% of the national vote.

AICM was established as a civil-society-based organisation in 2020. It is a registered party with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and garnered relative popularity in the North West as an alternative to the African National Congress (ANC).

It contested the 2021 local government elections and received one seat in the Ruth Segomotsi Mompati district municipality and six seats in local municipalities.

The CCM, on the other hand, has not contested any previous elections and is not a registered political party.

According to a press briefing on 26 January, it was founded to define, consolidate and defend the political, economic, and social interests and agenda of creative people in South Africa. 

The organisation said that it is now time that it joins the political sphere, and added it was grateful to avoid “the tedious process of registering as a political party” with the IEC.

ActionSA Leader Herman Mashaba said that the consolidation of these parties under the “green umbrella” will strengthen the party’s position for the upcoming local government elections. 

By consolidating smaller parties into ActionSA, the party has accumulated 41 councillors without going through by-elections.

This is after consolidating with the Forum for Service Delivery (F4SD), the Capricorn Independent Community Activists Forum, the Magoshi Swaranang Movement, the Democratic Union Party and the Thabazimbi Residents Association.

Mashaba said that merging with the AICM has given ActionSA 7 additional councillors in the North West Province, bringing its total number to 30 in the area.

This is after ActionSA recently won Ward 130 in the North West from the ANC.

On merging with the CCM, Mashaba has said that the current government has destroyed the arts industry and that the arts industry will be revived under the green umbrella. 

 “When ActionSA takes Johannesburg and Tshwane”, Mashaba said, “we will retake hijacked buildings and reopen theatres in the inner city,” he said. 

He said he hopes that his personal mission is to rejuvenate the city of Johannesburg so that in a few years, he can live in an apartment on inner city Johannesburg and he and his wife can walk to the theatre. 

ActionSA gives RISE Mzansi, BOSA and GOOD the cold shoulder

National Chairperson of ActionSA, Michael Beaumont, said that consolidating with these parties will help build ActionSA into a strong opposition party. 

“Parties that were once strong opposition parties are now failing and have been bought by the ANC,” he said. “We will offer the strong alternative that people have been looking for for some years now.”

ActionSA spokesperson Lerato Ngobeni said that she has been questioned on the size of the parties with which it is merging.

“It is amazing how the big parties can be so rattled by us, the smaller ones.”

She responded that “if you think you are too small to make a difference, then you have not spent a night with a mosquito.”

“And we shall sting until we see the outcomes we are hoping for.”

The consolidation of parties comes months after Beaumont told Newsday that the party did not join the Unite for Change initiative, led by GOOD, Build One South Africa (BOSA) and Rize Mzansi, because they “hardly have two councillors to rub together.”

He said ActionSA does not need to rely on such alliances, while arguing that ActionSA’s strategy of consolidating smaller parties that are represented in council under the green umbrella predates Unite for Change. 

Despite having no representation in the national parliament, ActionSA insists that taking on AICM and CCM is a strategic move.

“Engaging high-profile parties that don’t exist on the ground and don’t have councillors is pointless,” said Beaumont, calling ventures like Unite for Change a “thoroughly pointless exercise.”

“That’s why, quite frankly, I would take AICM’s seven councillors every day of the week, and twice on Sunday, before I took a party in parliament that doesn’t have a councillor.”