ActionSA
ActionSA is a South African political party established on 29 August 2020 by Herman Mashaba, a businessman and former mayor of Johannesburg, to address systemic corruption, ineffective governance, and economic stagnation attributed to the long-ruling African National Congress.[1][2]
The party emphasizes principled leadership, rigorous anti-corruption enforcement, border security to safeguard public resources for citizens, and market-oriented policies aimed at fostering equal opportunity without reliance on racial quotas.[3][4]
ActionSA has achieved notable electoral success, including capturing municipal wards from the ANC in local and by-elections, and obtaining seats in the National Assembly after the 2024 general election, reflecting its appeal in urban centers disillusioned with established parties.[5][6][7]
Central to its platform is opposition to illegal immigration, which the party argues strains infrastructure and employment opportunities—a position that has provoked criticism from rivals alleging xenophobia, though ActionSA counters that such measures are essential for sustainable development in a resource-constrained nation.[8][9]
Formation and Early History
Launch and Registration
Herman Mashaba resigned as executive mayor of Johannesburg and from the Democratic Alliance (DA) on 21 October 2019, with the resignation effective 27 November 2019, citing irreconcilable differences with the party's national leadership that hindered his efforts to combat corruption, illegal occupations, and governance failures in the city amid unstable coalitions.[10][11][12] Mashaba argued that the DA's internal shifts, including the election of Helen Zille as federal council chairperson and decisions like reinstating a suspended leader, signaled a departure from the principled non-racialism and decisive action against malfeasance he deemed essential for effective municipal leadership.[13][14] In response to these perceived shortcomings in the DA and broader political landscape dominated by the African National Congress (ANC), Mashaba established ActionSA to offer a movement centered on practical governance reforms, strict adherence to the rule of law, and rejection of race-based politics in favor of individual merit and accountability.[2] The party positioned itself as an action-oriented alternative for voters frustrated with entrenched corruption and service delivery breakdowns, drawing on Mashaba's business background to emphasize efficiency over ideological posturing.[2] ActionSA was publicly launched on 29 August 2020, marking its formal entry as a new political entity independent of legacy parties.[15] ActionSA submitted its application for registration with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) shortly after launch, achieving initial registration on 17 September 2020, which paved the way for electoral participation despite subsequent disputes over the party's logo that delayed full approval until 13 December 2020.[15][16] Early organizational efforts included targeted recruitment of urban professionals and middle-class voters disillusioned by ANC mismanagement and DA ineffectiveness, building a base through grassroots mobilization in major cities like Johannesburg.[2] This registration solidified ActionSA's legal standing as a contestant in South African elections, enabling its subsequent campaigns.[17]Initial Campaigns and Growth
ActionSA was formally launched on 29 August 2020 via a live studio broadcast during South Africa's stringent COVID-19 lockdown, positioning itself as an alternative to entrenched political failures. The party's core messaging drew from The People's Dialogue, a nine-month pre-launch consultation process initiated in late 2019 that solicited input from 2.4 million South Africans on governance priorities, revealing widespread frustration with corruption, unemployment, and deteriorating public services under African National Congress (ANC) dominance.[2][18] This initiative underscored empirical grievances, such as persistent infrastructure decay in ANC-controlled municipalities, where national audits documented over 30% of water systems in critical failure by 2020. Initial campaigns emphasized pragmatic critiques of lockdown implementation, including procurement irregularities in pandemic relief funds totaling billions of rand, as exposed by public accounts committee inquiries, and uneven enforcement that exacerbated economic distress. ActionSA leveraged social media and virtual town halls for outreach, bypassing physical restrictions to highlight causal links between governance lapses—such as delayed stimulus disbursements—and heightened poverty rates, which surged to 55.5% nationally by mid-2020 per Statistics South Africa data. This approach framed the party as reformers focused on accountability rather than ideology, appealing to voters in high-dissatisfaction regions without direct involvement in street protests, which numbered over 500 during the lockdown period amid similar corruption allegations.[19][20] Grassroots expansion accelerated post-initial restrictions, with door-to-door canvassing in underserved communities amplifying anti-ANC/DA narratives on verifiable service breakdowns, including Gauteng's metros where protest data showed the province accounting for nearly 40% of national service delivery unrest from 2018-2020 due to factors like uncollected refuse exceeding 1 million tons annually in Johannesburg. By mid-2021, ActionSA had extended branches to all nine provinces, launching over 50 in KwaZulu-Natal alone in June and prioritizing Gauteng strongholds like Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Ekurhuleni, where municipal performance indicators revealed the lowest basic services access rates among metros—e.g., 25% of Ekurhuleni households without reliable water. This provincial rollout, informed by local input, built organizational footing ahead of broader contests, fostering membership via targeted recruitment against status quo inefficiencies.[21][22][23]Leadership and Organization
Herman Mashaba's Role
Herman Mashaba, born on 26 August 1959 in the Ga-Rankuwa township near Hammanskraal, rose from humble origins marked by poverty and limited education to become a prominent entrepreneur.[24] After early jobs as a garden boy and top salesman for a hair product company during apartheid, he founded Black Like Me, a hair care business targeting black consumers, in 1985 with minimal capital.[25] The company expanded rapidly despite systemic barriers, eventually selling a majority stake to Colgate-Palmolive in the early 2000s while Mashaba retained leadership roles.[24] This self-made success, achieved through merit and market-driven innovation rather than state favoritism, informed his transition to politics, driven by disillusionment with post-apartheid policies that he viewed as perpetuating dependency and elite capture instead of fostering widespread opportunity.[26] Mashaba entered politics by joining the Democratic Alliance (DA) in 2014, leveraging his business acumen for a merit-focused approach over identity-based appeals.[27] He was elected mayor of Johannesburg on 22 August 2016 following the DA-led coalition's municipal election victory, prioritizing practical governance.[28] During his tenure until November 2019, he spearheaded inner-city rejuvenation efforts, including large-scale clean-up operations in the CBD and suburbs to address decay and illegal occupations.[29] On corruption, Mashaba established a dedicated unit under a former Scorpions investigator, leading to over 3,500 active probes by 2018 involving R18 billion in alleged irregularities, with broader efforts uncovering 6,000 cases exceeding R35 billion in fraud and maladministration.[30] His uncompromising stance emphasized accountability and efficiency, drawing from business principles to challenge entrenched patronage networks.[31] Mashaba resigned as mayor and from the DA on 21 October 2019, citing irreconcilable differences after the party's federal executive endorsed potential post-election coalitions with the African National Congress (ANC), which he argued would rehabilitate a corruption-riddled entity at the expense of principled opposition.[11] [12] This led him to found ActionSA on 24 April 2020, where he assumed the presidency and remains the party's most visible leader.[32] In this role, Mashaba continues to advocate for policy reforms prioritizing individual merit and entrepreneurship, frequently critiquing Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) in public addresses as a mechanism that entrenches cronyism by benefiting politically connected elites rather than enabling broad-based economic participation.[32] [33] His leadership style, rooted in first-hand experience overcoming barriers without affirmative handouts, underscores a commitment to causal accountability over redistributive shortcuts.[34]Party Structure and Key Figures
ActionSA employs a federal organizational structure delineated in its interim constitution, encompassing a national leadership tier, provincial executive committees (PECs), and local branches to support decentralized engagement and regional autonomy in operations.[35] The Senate, as a key decision-making body, holds authority to establish the party's overall organogram, staff structures, and role definitions, ensuring coordinated yet branch-level implementation of policies.[35] This framework facilitates volunteer-led activities at grassroots levels, with provincial structures such as the KwaZulu-Natal PEC handling local recruitment and campaigns, as evidenced by instances of their dissolution for accountability measures in September 2025.[36] Prominent figures beyond the presidency include national chairperson Michael Beaumont, who oversees strategic direction and contributes expertise in infrastructure policy, having previously served in advocacy roles focused on governance reforms.[37] Deputy president Dr. Mbahare Kekana, appointed on January 15, 2025, following ActionSA's constitutional amendment to integrate the Forum 4 Service Delivery, brings experience in municipal service delivery from her prior leadership in that organization.[38] [37] The party recruits from diverse professional and activist backgrounds, including figures like chief strategist André Coetzee, who supports policy formulation, and parliamentary members such as Athol Trollip and Malebo Kobe, reflecting non-patronage-based advancement through demonstrated competence.[37][39] ActionSA's transparency in structure is underscored by public releases of constitutional updates and leadership appointments, including the January 2025 amendments creating the deputy presidency, which enable verifiable oversight of internal processes unlike the patronage-shrouded opaqueness in parties reliant on undisclosed funding networks.[35][38] This approach counters perceptions of centralized authoritarianism by empowering provincial and local entities in candidate selection and issue resolution, with over 44 councillors in Johannesburg municipality exemplifying branch-level operational independence as of 2024.Ideology and Policy Positions
Core Principles and Values
ActionSA's foundational principles center on non-racialism, viewing it as essential to realizing individual potential free from racial categorization, as articulated in the party's 2024 election manifesto, which rejects race-based policies in favor of merit-driven opportunities.[40] This commitment aligns with constitutional imperatives for equality under the law, prioritizing the supremacy of the Constitution to ensure legal accountability applies uniformly, irrespective of political affiliation or identity.[40] The party positions these values against empirical evidence of governance failures, where deviations from merit and rule of law have perpetuated inefficiencies, such as in public appointments that exacerbate service delivery breakdowns. Ethical leadership and anti-corruption form a core tenet, rooted in a rejection of systemic enablers of state capture and malfeasance, with the manifesto pledging zero tolerance through expanded definitions of corruption and strengthened accountability mechanisms.[40] This stance transcends partisan lines, emphasizing integrity in public office to restore trust eroded by scandals like those investigated by the Zondo Commission, which documented billions in losses from networked corruption networks.[41] ActionSA advocates "prioritiz[ing] merit over race in all appointments" to combat nepotism and cadre deployment practices that have undermined institutional efficacy.[40] The principles further underscore self-reliance and family structures as bulwarks against dependency, critiquing expansive welfare systems that, under prolonged single-party dominance since 1994, have coincided with unemployment rates persisting above 30%—reaching 33.2% in Q2 2025, with youth rates at 62.2%.[42][40] By promoting economic independence and valuing family units as societal foundations, ActionSA seeks to disrupt cycles where grant reliance substitutes for job creation, arguing that true social justice demands equitable access to opportunities rather than perpetual state provisioning, which data shows has not reversed structural joblessness.[43][40] These values, encapsulated in the party's NESREEQ framework (Non-racialism, Electoral reform, Social justice, Rule of law, Economic prosperity, Ethical leadership, Quality education), aim to foster a secure, prosperous society through causal accountability rather than identity-based exemptions.[44]Economic, Social, and Foreign Policies
ActionSA advocates for an economic framework centered on deregulation and market liberalization to address South Africa's protracted GDP growth stagnation, which averaged below 1% annually from 2020 to 2023 and recorded only 0.6% growth in 2023 amid energy shortages and regulatory burdens.[45][46] The party proposes repealing Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) legislation, which it views as a barrier to investment, and replacing it with growth-oriented alternatives like the Opportunity Fund—a time-limited (up to 30 years) private sector-funded initiative for inclusive empowerment without race-based quotas.[47][46] To attract foreign direct investment (FDI), policies include tax holidays for firms employing over 500 workers, relaxed skilled immigration rules, and simplifying business regulations via a single online platform, alongside upholding constitutional property rights through land-use reforms and incentives like permanent residency for investments exceeding R20 million in immovable property.[46] Labour law reforms aim to reduce non-essential procedures while protecting core worker rights, with emphasis on infrastructure in energy and ICT to leverage trade pacts like the African Continental Free Trade Area.[46] On social issues, ActionSA prioritizes measurable accountability in crime reduction, education, and healthcare over redistributive mandates. For crime, the party calls for harsher penalties including no parole for repeat offenders in murder or rape cases, reintroduction of specialized policing units, and expanding police capacity through recruitment drives focused on prevention and prosecution, declaring corruption "public enemy number one" with minimum 15-year sentences for graft exceeding R500,000.[47][48] In education, policies target a world-class system via universal early childhood development, depoliticization of curricula, enhanced teacher training, and a minimum 50% pass rate across subjects, with civic education to foster anti-corruption awareness.[47] Healthcare reforms emphasize efficiency in public facilities, rejection of the National Health Insurance scheme, increased training of medical professionals, and a private member's bill compelling parliamentarians and judges to utilize public services to align incentives with service quality improvements.[47] ActionSA's foreign policy emphasizes national economic interests and human rights adherence over ideological alignments, advocating diplomacy to advance trade and investment while upholding international law.[47] The party supports maintaining South Africa's BRICS membership and participation in forums like the G20 but insists on prioritizing citizen welfare above "cold war alliances," critiquing alignments with authoritarian regimes that undermine human rights or economic compatibility.[49] It favors building trade ties with partners—particularly in Africa and the West—that align with South Africa's developmental needs, including collaboration on law enforcement against transnational crime, while reducing an oversized diplomatic footprint to focus resources efficiently.[47][50]Electoral History
2021 Municipal Elections
ActionSA participated in the 2021 South African municipal elections held on 1 November 2021, contesting seats in six municipalities across Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces as its first electoral outing.[51] The party secured a total of 90 council seats nationwide, achieving a 2.36% share of the valid votes cast in the areas it contested, which positioned it as the sixth-largest party by seat count despite the limited scope.[52] This performance reflected voter dissatisfaction with incumbent governance, particularly the African National Congress (ANC), in urban centers, where ActionSA emphasized pledges to prioritize service delivery, combat corruption, and address infrastructure failures.[53] The party's strongest results occurred in Gauteng's metropolitan municipalities, underscoring an urban anti-ANC sentiment amid ongoing issues like water shortages, power outages, and poor waste management. In Johannesburg, ActionSA obtained 16.05% of the vote, translating to 44 seats in the 270-seat council.[52][53] In Tshwane, it garnered 8.64% of the vote for 19 seats out of 214.[52] Ekurhuleni yielded 6.60% and 15 seats in a 113-seat council.[52] These gains disrupted ANC majorities in the metros, contributing to hung councils without inflating reliance on pre-election alliances.[53]| Municipality | Vote Share (%) | Seats Won |
|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg | 16.05 | 44 |
| Tshwane | 8.64 | 19 |
| Ekurhuleni | 6.60 | 15 |