DA declared R225m before the 2026 vote. Who funds SA's parties

The DA declared R225 million in donations in the 15 months from April 2025 to June 2026, the run-up to the 4 November local elections, according to a tally of IEC disclosure records by The Citizen. That is far more than any other party. The money that came in during the final four months before voting day has not been published yet.

How much did each party declare?

The Citizen's count of the IEC declarations puts the next-biggest totals well behind the DA (The Citizen).

Source: The Citizen, based on IEC declarations.

The DA's money came in four chunks: R33 million from April to September 2025, R31 million from October to December 2025, R57 million from January to March 2026 and R104 million from April to June 2026 (The Citizen).

What did the last published quarter show?

For April to June 2026, the IEC said four parties declared R116.8 million between them, and the DA accounted for about 89% of it (SABC News).

Sources: SABC News, Joburg ETC.

Two companies, Fynbos Ekwiteit and Fynbos Kapitaal, gave the DA R30 million and R25 million that quarter, R55 million combined (Joburg ETC). The DA's total also included R5.28 million in non-cash support, such as vehicles made available to the party (Joburg ETC). The Citizen reports Fynbos Ekwiteit is owned by Capitec founder Michiel le Roux (The Citizen).

ActionSA's R5.5 million included R5 million from businessman Martin Moshal, and the Labour Party's R5 million came from mineworkers' union AMCU (Joburg ETC).

Why wasn't the ANC in the IEC's total?

The IEC said R15.27 million in ANC-related donation submissions for that quarter did not meet the disclosure requirements of the Political Funding Act, so it left them out of the compliant total and issued the party a Section 15 direction to fix the problems (SABC News).

The commission stressed this is not a finding that the donations themselves are unlawful. It concerns how they were disclosed and verified (SABC News).

Is it legal for one party to get this much?

Yes. Private funding of parties is legal within the limits of the Political Party Funding Act (The Citizen). Since a 2025 presidential proclamation, a party may not accept more than R30 million from one donor in a financial year, and any donation above R200,000 in a financial year must be disclosed to the IEC (Acts Online).

Asked about its donors, the DA told The Citizen it would "not make a comment on our donor relationships" (The Citizen).

What doesn't the public get to see?

Only donations above the threshold are named. In the IEC's annual funding report for April 2024 to March 2025, disclosed donations made up just 27% of parties' private funding (excluding loans), according to an analysis by advocacy group My Vote Counts (Politicsweb). The same analysis found 448 of 611 registered parties had not submitted the required statement of income (Politicsweb).

How can you check who funds a party?

The IEC publishes every quarterly declaration report, in PDF and Excel, on its party funding reports page. Pick the financial year and quarter to see each party's declared donors and amounts. Donations for July to October 2026, the busiest campaign stretch, will show up there once the IEC publishes the next quarters.