MEDIA ALERT
Tuesday, 03 November 2026
Who Funds Our Politics? What the IEC’s Annual Report Reveals About the Gaps in Political Funding Transparency| An Analysis by My Vote Counts
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has published its Annual Political Party Funding Report (the Report), providing an overview of public and private funding received by South Africa’s political parties between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025. The reporting period is particularly significant: it includes the 2024 national and provincial elections, as well as three months during which key provisions of South Africa’s political funding legislation were not in effect.
As we did last year, My Vote Counts (MVC) has examined the IEC’s Report to understand how political parties are funded, where their money comes from, and what the available information tells us about the state of political funding transparency in South Africa.
The introduction of the Political Funding Act (PFA) marked an important step towards greater transparency in our democracy. It made political funding more visible to the public and established mechanisms to regulate private donations. But visibility is not the same as accountability. While we know considerably more about political funding than we did before the Act, significant gaps remain in what parties are required to disclose, how their finances are accounted for, and how effectively the law is enforced.
Our analysis finds that South Africa’s political funding framework still leaves important questions unanswered. We can see some of the money flowing into political parties, but we cannot always establish where it ultimately comes from, who stands behind it, or the conditions attached to it.
More than R3 billion in funding
Political parties received R3.07 billion in combined public and private funding during the reporting period, excluding loans. Of this amount, R2.2 billion came from public funding and R846 million from private sources. The ANC and DA together received approximately 63% of this combined total.
Disclosed donations above the applicable threshold amounted to R231 million. Although this represents approximately 86% of recorded donations, it accounts for only 27% of all private funding, excluding loans. This distinction matters: the public can identify a significant proportion of reported donations, but the sources of a substantial share of political parties’ private income remain unclear. In other words, the disclosed donations tell only part of the story of how political parties finance their operations.
We know who donated. But do we know who is behind the money?
One of the most significant weaknesses identified in our analysis is the limited information available about the sources of political parties’ income beyond disclosed donations. The Report includes a category of ‘other income’, under which the ANC declared more than R240 million. The nature and sources of this income remain particularly opaque, exposing a weakness in the current legislative framework.
There is also very little information available about parties’ borrowing activities, including the identities of lenders and the terms and conditions attached to loans. Furthermore, the current framework does not provide sufficient information about the individuals who ultimately stand behind corporate and trust donors. These are not simply technical reporting gaps. They limit the public’s ability to scrutinise the financial relationships surrounding political parties, identify potential conflicts of interest, and assess whether private interests may influence political priorities and decision-making.
The problem is not necessarily that these financial relationships are improper. Private donations and corporate contributions are not, in themselves, evidence of undue influence. The problem is that without sufficient disclosure, the public cannot meaningfully assess these relationships. Much of this information remains outside the scope of what the law requires parties to disclose.
Disclosure means little without compliance
Transparency also depends on political parties complying with the rules that already exist. Here, the IEC’s findings raise further concerns. According to the Report, 448 of 611 registered political parties failed to submit the required statement of income. The Report also identifies specific compliance concerns involving individual parties. It states that the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party “failed to account for R700,000 from the Funds account”, while the IEC questioned the ANC’s clean audit finding.
These findings raise important questions about the effectiveness of existing compliance and enforcement mechanisms. Disclosure requirements can only serve their intended purpose if political parties meet their obligations and the IEC is able to respond meaningfully when they do not. A political funding system cannot deliver meaningful transparency if large numbers of registered parties fail to submit the information required of them.
Political funding is a democratic accountability issue
Political parties need funding to fulfil their roles in a multi-party democracy, but the sources of that funding, the conditions attached to it and how it is spent matter. The public has a right to know who finances the parties seeking their votes and whether these relationships create potential conflicts of interest.
Our analysis shows that while the Political Funding Act has advanced transparency, significant gaps remain. We need stronger legislation requiring fuller disclosure of political parties’ income, loans and the ultimate interests behind corporate and trust donors, alongside stronger compliance and enforcement mechanisms and measures to reduce parties’ reliance on private funding.
Ultimately, political funding transparency is about ensuring that the public has the information needed to scrutinise political parties and hold them accountable.
MVC invites the public, researchers, journalists and political parties to engage with the IEC’s Report and our analysis. Political funding is a matter of public interest, and the public has a right to know how the institutions seeking to represent them are financed.
You can read MVC’s full analysis here
ENDS
