Local government elections, political fallout from two commissions and a possible coup plot uncovered – 2026 is the year when things get real. An unscheduled press conference by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi on 6 July 2025 set the stage for 2026 and even 2027, when the ANC and South Africa will face crossing a churning Rubicon. Right now, though, our Rubicon still smells more like S**t Creek.
But 2026 is the year we reach for the paddles, shove off for the rapids of what will be highly contested local government elections (on a date yet to be determined), and hope for clearer water ahead. The day Mkhwanazi confirmed the suspected nexus between organised crime syndicates, law enforcement, drug cartels and government officials, everything changed in South Africa. Prompted by an apparent order from Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu to shut down the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), the lieutenant-general went ballistic and in the process shot up the Most Handsome Uniformed Strongman in Africa charts (with Ibrahim Traoré still at No 1).
Nhlanhla “Lucky” Mkhwanazi named names and things, and the country has not been the same since that press conference. The ANC and President Cyril Ramaphosa are limping into local government elections after having lost the overall majority in 2024, and being forced to form a multiparty government while bleeding wards to former president Jacob Zuma’s MK party in by-elections, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. The ANC will go into its 56th elective conference in 2027 having just emerged from aNational General Councilto discuss “party renewal” and its “back-to-basics” ethos.
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Ramaphosa threw down the gauntlet to his comrades, saying: “Those whose conduct conflicts with our values and principles, the criminals, the corrupt, the careerists, extortionists, factionalists and those who actively work against the organisation should find themselves outside the African National Congress.” As the official opposition, the MK party (or the “old ANC” as it is known in some parts), will be burdened with multiple brushes with the law, not that this appears to concern its supporters. It will be carrying the weight of outstanding legal bills and other debts, with Zuma due to face charges relating to the Arms Deal, depending on the weather in Stalingrad. MK’s former very own flamingumkhonto(spear), Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla (43), is headed for a torrid year as she faces the law for her alleged key role in therecruitmentof 17 young South Africans deployed by the mercenary Wagner group to the Russia-Ukraine war zone.
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