Seventy years after thousands of South African women marched against the Pass Laws, more than 16 million of their descendants stand as the majority of registered voters ahead of the November 2026 local elections — comprising 55.28 percent of the electorate. Yet numerical strength has never automatically become structural power, and the gap between casting ballots and shaping policy remains a defining challenge of this democratic moment. Local government is where water runs or fails, where streets are lit or darkened, where informal settlements grow or are addressed — and it is women who bear t
Women's Electoral Majority Could Reshape South Africa's Local Elections
Women disproportionately suffer from service delivery failures including unsafe water, poor sanitation, inadequate housing in informal settlements, unsafe public transport, and gender-based violence linked to poor infrastructure.