Rise Mzansi, Build One South Africa (BOSA) and the GOOD Party have announced a merger to form a new political entity called Unite for Change. The new party plans to contest the 2026 local government elections as a unified front.
The political parties will be registered with the Electoral Commission (IEC) and all current and future parties that join will run for election under the new name and banner.
The members of the leaders’ council include Dr Mmusi Maimane, tourism minister Patricia de Lille, Songezo Zibi, Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster, Vuyiswa Ramokgopa and Brett Herron.
According to the parties, the merger is not a coalition of convenience but a “coming together of equals, demonstrating the responsibility of leadership, which often requires a different approach to the one we once believed was right”.
The party’s 2026 election campaign will focus on five urgent priorities to uplift municipalities across the country.
These include identifying and unearthing new and existing skills and talent, values-based leadership and ending cadre deployment and corruption in government.
The party’s aims also include creating jobs and growth through local investment and positioning cities as the main drivers of change. Focus will be on the digital, creative, care and tourism economies, it said.
Sitting councillors, MPs and MPLs are expected to continue to serve under existing party brands, as they were elected to do, and the parties all remain fully intact as entities, with their existing electoral mandates and responsibilities honoured in full.
“The moment today has come where we as a generation have to step up and say, what is the change that we seek to bring? What is that moment of unity and what is that unity of courage and unity of purpose? It bears no repeating that our towns and cities are broken. Ultimately, citizens are fast becoming frustrated with the political system that seems to leave them behind. They know deep down in their hearts that South Africa isn’t heading in the right direction. They believe and they hear that there are too many empty promises. And they fear that there isn’t a plan to be able to take them to a nation that prospers and cities that can deliver for them,” BOSA leader Maimane said.
Maimane said 2026 would be one of the most significant turning points in democracy and believes the nation will need change, where it must be governed differently and by different people.
“[Regarding] next year’s elections, while the parties remain, they remain in parliament and they remain in legislatures. Next year there will be one voice on the ballot paper and I’m inviting people to come through to work for Unite for Change. The candidates will contest as one. There will be a very clear process of how candidates are selected. We want the best. Not those who are hopscotching backwards and forwards,” he said.
GOOD leader De Lille said South Africans have become sick and tired of corruption.
“It is the old parties that have failed as a collective. I always say that the ANC and the DA are good for each other, but they’re not good for our country because they both failed. So, new parties would not exist if the old ones were considered viable and robust,” she said.
Rise Mzansi Zibi said South Africans need the best and most capable leaders to make laws and policy decisions that irrevocably affect their lives.
“We are in this mess because the exact opposite is common, where people of questionable character, history and capability have the reins of power and destroy institutions and people’s lives,” he said.
He said the founding parties were continuing to consult and have discussions with other political parties, organisations and people in their own structures.
The Memorandum of Agreement states that the three founding parties will adopt a merit-based candidate selection model for all candidate lists.
This model will focus on ensuring that individuals standing for election as councillors are from their own communities, are known and trusted by those communities, and are ultimately accountable to them.
The parties have also invited prospective councillor candidates, especially new ones, to step forward and play their part in turning around towns, cities and villages across the country.
TimesLIVE
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