Ahead of the upcoming local government elections scheduled for November 4, Amnesty International South Africa is calling on voters to cast their ballots with human rights and accountability at the forefront of their minds.

With widespread public frustration over collapsing infrastructure and poor governance, the human rights organisation stresses that these elections represent a critical turning point for the country.

Amnesty International South Africa executive director Shenilla Mohamed stated that high levels of dissatisfaction with service delivery and visible failures in many municipalities make these elections a critical moment of accountability.

"Millions of people in South Africa continue to be denied their rights owing to corruption, mismanagement, poor governance and failing service delivery," said Mohamed. "Successive governments have failed to deliver on the constitutional rights to have access to adequate housing, water, sanitation and other basic services."

Mohamed noted that voters must send a “strong message” to elected politicians that corruption and poor service delivery will no longer be tolerated.

She emphasised that basic service delivery is the foundation of South Africa’s human rights and reminded citizens that the State has a binding constitutional obligation to ensure access to these rights.

A major concern heading into the November 4 polls is the steady decline in voter turnout over recent years. Participation in local government elections dropped significantly from 57.94% in 2016 to just 45.86% in 2021.

According to Amnesty International, these figures reflect a “growing dissatisfaction with the State”, particularly among young people who the organisation believes feel disconnected from the political process.

Mohamed warned against the danger of staying away from the polls, reiterating that voting is a vital mechanism to challenge systemic failures.

"Municipal officials are critical for service delivery in that they manage the budgets and set the priorities that determine how rights are delivered. We need to change the face of service delivery in the country from one of corruption and mismanagement with no consequence to one of efficiency and accountability," she said.

She urged voters to ensure that the politicians elected possess the necessary skills to deliver on their mandates and are strictly held to account if they fail.

"This election is an opportunity to demand accountability, and vote for a country where human rights come first," she said.

The call to action comes at a time when service delivery has once again become a central campaign promise. However, Mohamed criticised political parties for reducing these constitutional obligations to mere pre-election politicking.

"Access to basic services remains a persistent challenge, corruption and mismanagement is widespread, and hope for improved governance is low," she noted.

The grim reality of municipal governance is underscored by the Auditor-General’s recent reports, which reveal that only 39 out of 257 municipalities achieved a clean audit. Furthermore, local governments lost a staggering R17.6-billion in fruitless and wasteful expenditure over a three-year period (2021/2022 - 2023/2024).

Amnesty International highlighted that the standard and quality of essential service delivery across the country has largely been weakened by the mismanagement of public funds, at the expense of residents.

"It has been more than 30 years of freedom and still many have to go without access to adequate housing, sufficient water for drinking and domestic use, and safe sanitation," Mohamed said.

"The government needs to fix this, and we, as the people, need to demand that this happens now.”