With just days to go before South Africans head to the polls for the 2026 Local Government Elections, the country's security forces say they are ready to protect the electoral process. The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure, NATJOINTS, has activated its national and provincial operational structures, with law enforcement agencies preparing for deployments across all nine provinces. This follows months of planning, intelligence gathering and security assessments aimed at identifying potential threats that could disrupt the elections. But the security preparations come against a backdrop of concerns around political intimidation, community tensions, service delivery protests, violence and possible disruptions at voting stations. NATJOINTS says voting stations have undergone security assessments, with deployments informed by their respective risk
levels. The South African National Defence Force has also indicated its readiness to support the police in identified hotspot areas should the need arise. Authorities say they will be monitoring developments in real time and have specialised units and contingency plans in place to respond to incidents. During Sunday's media briefing, the security cluster sought to assure the country that measures are in place to protect voters, election officials and electoral infrastructure. But just how prepared are our law enforcement agencies for what could be a particularly volatile election period? And what happens when political contestation spills over into violence or threatens people's right to
vote freely? We unpack the country's state of security readiness ahead of the elections.