{"id":869481,"date":"2026-09-08T14:54:50","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T12:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=869481"},"modified":"2026-09-08T15:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T13:24:12","slug":"extra-public-holiday-for-south-africa-with-the-date-officially-declared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/869481\/extra-public-holiday-for-south-africa-with-the-date-officially-declared\/","title":{"rendered":"Extra public holiday for South Africa officially declared"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially declared South Africa&#8217;s local government election day, 4 November, as a public holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The declaration followed the official gazetting and proclamation of 4 November 2026 as the election date by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Velenkosini Hlabisa in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The presidential declaration was made in terms of Section 2A of the Public Holidays Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This section gives the President the power to declare any specific day as a public holiday across the whole country or just in a local area by publishing a notice in the Government Gazette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The declaration was fully expected, given the historic precedent that all election dates are made public holidays, but the gazetting has finalised the legislative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ramaphosa&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/862551\/extra-public-holiday-for-south-africa-is-coming\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;in April 2026 that the municipal elections would be held on 4 November 2026 following discussions at the Extended Presidential Coordinating Council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) confirmed soon after that 4 November 2026 would be designated as a public holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The confirmation came after concerns were raised that the election could disrupt the matric examination period because many schools serve as voting stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking after discussions between Parliament\u2019s Standing Committee on Appropriations, the IEC and the Department of Home Affairs, committee chairperson Mmusi Maimane said the electoral body had already addressed the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe IEC replied that through consultation with the Department of Basic Education, there will be minimal disruptions to matriculants as the day will be designated as a public holiday,\u201d Maimane said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 4 November election date was selected because it falls outside the festive season, is likely to improve voter turnout, and will have only a limited impact on schools and the matric examination timetable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Official setting of the election date<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/55162-7-8-Co-Op-Governance.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Official declaration of a public holiday<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/55352-8-9-HomeAffairs.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially declared South Africa&#8217;s local government election day, 4 November, as a public holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":874426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2097307729207419021","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2199522450868154","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18115731325749338","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1293],"class_list":["post-869481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cyril-ramaphosa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869481"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874429,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869481\/revisions\/874429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}