Eldorado Park Local Government Elections: Ward 18 Residents Demand Action on Service Delivery

ELDORADO PARK, Johannesburg – As the Eldorado Park local government elections draw near, residents of the city’s most hotly contested ward are urging political candidates to prioritize rampant service delivery challenges and remain honest about what they can actually achieve.

Ward 18, which covers Eldorado Park and Bushkoppies, has become the focal point of the upcoming polls. With 80 political parties vying for council seats nationwide, this specific ward features a crowded ballot with 63 candidates. The race is so congested that one candidate, the EFF’s Charlene Elder, has publicly contested her inclusion, stating she did not ask to be put forward and is currently consulting lawyers to have her name removed from the ballot.

For the residents on the ground, however, the political spectacle takes a backseat to decades of compounding infrastructure and social challenges.

Community Leaders Call for Honesty and Unity

Dominique Palmer, deputy chairperson of the local Community Policing Forum (CPF), says the community is vibrant and hardworking but is being let down by severe service delivery failures. According to Palmer, residents face electricity and water outages every four days to a week.

The power grid is heavily compromised by overloaded transformers, illegal connections, and severe cable theft. The theft has become so rampant that it has caused traffic lights to collapse, leaving intersections without robots.

Despite the infrastructure decay, Palmer notes a positive shift in local policing. She commends the South African Police Service (SAPS) for their increased visibility, better firearms, and success in quieting gang activity. However, she emphasizes that local SAPS are highly preferred over external military deployments, such as the SANDF, because local officers understand the community’s unique dynamics.

Palmer also stresses that the community must take ownership of its future. She notes that while some residents actively help, others complain without contributing, urging the community to stop pointing fingers and stand together. Her core message to the 63 candidates vying for their votes is simple: honesty.

“When you promise our community, please do it,” Palmer urged. “Stop promising what you can’t do. If you can’t go out at night, say sorry. Don’t promise free electricity or a crime-free area if you can’t deliver. Just be honest with our community.”

Political Candidates Advocate for Holistic Solutions

Addressing these systemic failures, Nomathamsanqa Mkhonza, the ActionSA ward candidate for Ward 18, acknowledges that while recent interventions like Operation Shanela and SANDF deployments have temporarily reduced crime, the underlying social challenges of drug abuse, unemployment, and gangsterism persist.

Mkhonza argues that past interventions have failed because they were tackled in silos. Calling in police or the military without integrating NGOs, community activists, and families results in a cycle where no tangible, long-lasting change is felt once the operations end.

The physical neglect of the area is highly visible. Mkhonza points to a local area, which has devolved into an unbearable dumping ground and informal recycling heap with polluted streams, alongside the proliferation of unregulated informal settlements. She attributes this to a historical negligence of government toward colored communities, forcing residents to find their own solutions when lacking employment and formal housing.

To break the cycle, Mkhonza says ActionSA’s strategy focuses on empowering residents to govern themselves and manage basic services. She proposes treating municipal service delivery—such as fixing potholes, maintaining water, and repairing electricity infrastructure—with the same target-driven efficiency and follow-up as private organizations.

Furthermore, she stresses the need to transform mindsets by focusing on the youth. By providing economic inclusion, skills development, and employment opportunities, Mkhonza believes the community can offer the youth a stronger, more appealing alternative to gangs and drugs.

With just over a month until voters head to the ballots, the message from Ward 18 is clear: residents are tired of empty promises and are demanding accountable, transparent, and holistic leadership to fix their community.