# Africa's Easy Elections Guide: Local Government 2026

An episode of [The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1074292047), 16 Oct 2026, 5:05.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/5dcefa8e-00a9-4595-8ce1-a4ab0080f142/fe8d1a9a-a053-424d-9f40-a57500d5394b/362c4766-4e11-4427-b8ac-b4e500b4884c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=18146681-7843-46cf-9a9c-a57500d59fe7

Mandy Wiener speaks to Investigative journalist and author Nickolaus Bauer about his new book: South Africa’s Easy Elections Guide 2026: Local Government Edition. The Midday Report with Mandy Wiener is 702 and CapeTalk’s flagship news show, your hour of essential news radio. The show is podcasted every weekday, allowing you to catch up with a 60-minute weekday wrap of the day's main news. It's packed with fast-paced interviews with the day’s newsmakers, as well as those who can make sense of the news and explain what's happening in your world. All the interviews are podcasted for you to catch up and listen to. Thank you for listening to this podcast of The Midday Report Listen live on weekdays between 12:00 and 13:00 (SA Time) to The Midday Report broadcast on 702 https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj and on CapeTalk https://buff.ly/NnFM3Nk For more from The Midday Report go to https://buff.ly/BTGmL9H and find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/LcbDdFI Subscribe to the 702 and CapeTalk daily and weekly newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfetc Follow us on social media: 702 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702 702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702 702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/ 702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702 702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702 CapeTalk on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@capetalk CapeTalk on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ CapeTalk on X: https://x.com/CapeTalk CapeTalk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CapeTalk567 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: We are less than three weeks away from local government elections.
[0:03] Speaker 1: And one of the biggest problems that we face in
[0:05] Speaker 1: South Africa is voter apathy. Will we see people coming
[0:09] Speaker 1: out to actually vote? We know local government elections have
[0:12] Speaker 1: notoriously low voter turnout. And what is it going to
[0:16] Speaker 1: be this year? And local government is where politics really
[0:19] Speaker 1: gets real. Your water, roads, rates, rubbish, electricity. But how
[0:25] Speaker 1: much do we actually understand about the people and the
[0:28] Speaker 1: systems that are running our municipalities? So a great book
[0:33] Speaker 1: being written by investigative journalist and author Nicolaus Bauer, who
[0:38] Speaker 1: I'm sure many of you know on this radio station.
[0:41] Speaker 1: It's called South Africa's Easy Elections Guide. It's the local
[0:45] Speaker 1: government edition. And Nicolaus joining me in studio.
[0:49] Speaker 2: Always a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me, Mandy.
[0:51] Speaker 1: What is the purpose of this book?
[0:53] Speaker 2: It's trying to make it as easy as possible for
[0:56] Speaker 2: every South African to go out and make an informed
[0:59] Speaker 2: choice on November the 4th. You encapsulated it perfectly well.
[1:03] Speaker 2: Few and fewer people are going to the polls. Democracy
[1:06] Speaker 2: is like a muscle. If we don't start flexing and
[1:08] Speaker 2: using that muscle, it turns into flab and then it
[1:11] Speaker 2: turns lame. And then before we know it, democracy, you know,
[1:15] Speaker 2: The Rotofeld state is paved with voter apathy, and we
[1:19] Speaker 2: may need that muscle sooner rather than later. And if
[1:22] Speaker 2: we haven't been using it, well, it's going to take
[1:24] Speaker 2: intense physiotherapy to get it back to where we want it.
[1:28] Speaker 1: So how have you tried to explain the local government
[1:31] Speaker 1: system to people through this book?
[1:33] Speaker 2: It can be very confusing depending on where you live.
[1:35] Speaker 2: I mean, urban voters like you and I, Mandy, we're
[1:39] Speaker 2: confined mostly to metros. So then it's pretty easy. You
[1:41] Speaker 2: only have two ballot papers, one for your PR vote
[1:44] Speaker 2: and one for your local ward councillor. But I've also
[1:47] Speaker 2: tried to explain in very, very simple terms how that
[1:49] Speaker 2: differs at a local municipality level, which then forms part
[1:53] Speaker 2: of a district municipality. So you end up having three
[1:55] Speaker 2: ballot papers. But other things that I've tried to explain
[1:58] Speaker 2: is that local government is not about these hot topic
[2:02] Speaker 2: issues that the candidates and mayoral candidates or ward candidates
[2:08] Speaker 2: are campaigning on. It's not about gender-based violence per se.
[2:12] Speaker 2: It's not about the big ticket items in the economy.
[2:15] Speaker 2: It's certainly not about undocumented migrants. And if I see
[2:19] Speaker 2: another candidate going out and campaigning, say that they'll get
[2:22] Speaker 2: rid of undocumented migrants in communities, I think I might
[2:26] Speaker 2: scream because As you said at the beginning, local government
[2:29] Speaker 2: is about water coming out of your tap, electricity going
[2:31] Speaker 2: into your home and refuse and being collected outside of
[2:35] Speaker 2: your door.
[2:36] Speaker 1: You've also done a city by city breakdown.
[2:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, I focused on the metros. There's eight of them.
[2:43] Speaker 2: I mean, it was more of a story until that
[2:45] Speaker 2: constitutional court judgment yesterday. The likes of Mangung was really
[2:48] Speaker 2: like one of the last ANC strongholds. And with their
[2:51] Speaker 2: failure to submit those PR candidates, I mean, they were
[2:54] Speaker 2: really saved by that constitutional court ruling here. ruling yesterday,
[2:57] Speaker 2: but I've given a lay of the land in all
[3:00] Speaker 2: of those metros, as well as a select couple of municipalities.
[3:03] Speaker 2: I'm also going to do details how we have this
[3:07] Speaker 2: municipal architecture of 257 municipalities, how they differ, what they're
[3:11] Speaker 2: responsible for, and what makes a metro a metro. And
[3:15] Speaker 2: also just trying to give a political lay of the land.
[3:18] Speaker 2: I mean, we live in a coalition country now, Mandy,
[3:20] Speaker 2: and we've got the government of national unity and uh
[3:23] Speaker 2: one big thing that that disappointment that i write about
[3:27] Speaker 2: in the book is that we we don't have any
[3:28] Speaker 2: legislation to give us those guardrails that we so desperately
[3:31] Speaker 2: need for coalition for formation at a municipal level um
[3:36] Speaker 2: but yeah i mean the book is a one-stop shop
[3:38] Speaker 2: it's a very very easy read and it's freely available
[3:40] Speaker 2: online there's a couple of physical copies that we've been
[3:44] Speaker 2: uh giving out at the book launches uh it's all
[3:46] Speaker 2: powered by the conrad adenau foundation and Yeah, it's my
[3:50] Speaker 2: little bit to try and get South Africans to not
[3:52] Speaker 2: only show up on election day, but make an informed
[3:54] Speaker 2: decision and critically be an engaged citizen in between the
[3:58] Speaker 2: elections because politicians have shown us time and time again,
[4:01] Speaker 2: they're not going to do it on their own.
[4:02] Speaker 1: If people want to get a copy, if they want
[4:04] Speaker 1: to read it, if they want to better understand how
[4:06] Speaker 1: the political system and the elections work and why it's important.
[4:09] Speaker 1: I mean, I'd love to take a hundred copies and
[4:12] Speaker 1: give them to kids at schools because that's who, you know,
[4:15] Speaker 1: the 18 year olds who should really care. How do
[4:17] Speaker 1: we share this information?
[4:19] Speaker 2: So it's freely available to download and data-free download as
[4:24] Speaker 2: part of the University of Pretoria's Emergence Scholar Initiative. It's
[4:27] Speaker 2: already been about 2,500 downloads, which is very, very encouraging.
[4:31] Speaker 2: And it's also available as a podcast on financial mail.
[4:34] Speaker 2: I mean, mixed between a podcast and an audiobook, I suppose.
[4:37] Speaker 2: I've just read out the key issues that are contained
[4:41] Speaker 2: in the book into the podcast itself. But I'll also...
[4:44] Speaker 2: I'll share the URL for the book itself on my
[4:47] Speaker 2: social media pages, Instagram, X and the like.
[4:51] Speaker 1: Nicholas, thank you so much. Nicholas Abawa here to tell
[4:53] Speaker 1: us about his book, South Africa's Easy Election Guide on
[4:57] Speaker 1: the Local Government. So important when we have voter apathy
[5:01] Speaker 1: in this country, such low voter turnout, absolutely crucial. Thank
[5:04] Speaker 1: you so much, Nicholas.

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