Political parties declared millions in donations at the back-end of 2025, with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) expecting higher amounts as elections draw nearer.
The IEC last week released the declared donations list for the period covering 1 September to 31 December 2025.
Parliament had earlier in 2025 adjusted the thresholds for declarations, allowing donations of less than R200 000 to go undeclared.
The upper threshold for declared donations was R15 million, which has since been doubled to R30 million.
Five political parties declared donations, racking up a combined R35 million in monetary and in-kind donations, including support programmes.
The DA were the biggest recipient of political funding over the reporting period, taking in 89% of the quarter’s donations.
Political donations
ActionSA received R1.4 million in donations, with Herman Mashaba donating R1.2 million to his own party.
The remaining R200 000 came from Lephatsi Investment, a company for which Mashaba has been listed as the executive director.
Build One South Africa (Bosa) and the IFP received in-kind donations from Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, a foundation based in Germany aimed at “achieving and maintaining peace, freedom and justice through political education”.
The donations amounted to R103 000 and R158 000, respectively, which went towards internal programmes for public conduct, ethics and accountability.
“The [IFP] donation covered costs associated with a workshop to support the training of party representatives in national, provincial and local government structures.
“Similarly to the case of Bosa, cumulative donations from the same donor exceeded the reporting threshold during the third quarter, requiring disclosure,” the IEC explained
The ANC received R2 million from the Chancellor House Trust.
Neither the EFF or uMkhonto weSizwe party have declared any donations for the 2025-26 financial year yet
The last donations declared by the two parties were donations of R515 000 and R380 000, respectively, during the last quarter of the 2024-25 financial year.
DA donations
The DA received R31.2 million from 10 donors, broken down as:
- R10 million from Fynbos Ekwiteit
- R10 million from The Ball Family Trust
- R4.6 million from Lawrin Investments
- R1.4 million from Friederich Naumann Foundation (R322 00 in-kind)
- R1.1 million from the Danish Liberal Democracy Programme
- R1 million each from SafdevSSDC, Dr CH Wiese and Mr and Mrs Breyer
- R850 000 from Voices of South Africa Foundation (in-kind)
- R202 000 from Dr MJ Burke
“Although it may have been anticipated that the upward revision might result in substantially higher declared amounts, this has not necessarily materialised during this reporting quarter.
“This, however, does not preclude such increased disclosures in future reporting periods, particularly in anticipation of the forthcoming 2026-27 local government elections,” the IEC stated.
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