CAPE TOWN, Friday 25 September 2026 — Al Jama-ah has selected Advocate Shameemah Dollie Salie as its candidate for executive mayor of Cape Town in the 4 November local government elections, placing a former Member of Parliament and current city councillor at the head of the party’s campaign in South Africa’s second-largest metropolitan municipality.
The party scheduled Salie’s formal introduction for Friday afternoon in Bonteheuwel, where she grew up, saying it deliberately chose a community setting rather than a formal political venue for the announcement.
Salie is also contesting Ward 60, which includes Sybrand Park, while Al Jama-ah says it will field candidates across Cape Town.
Her selection adds another experienced political figure to a mayoral field in which incumbent DA mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis is seeking another term and the ANC and EFF are attempting to erode the DA’s longstanding control of the metro.
Former MP returns to municipal contest
Salie currently serves as an Al Jama-ah proportional-representation councillor in the City of Cape Town.
She previously represented the party in the National Assembly between 2024 and 2025 and has served in Cape Town council before and after that parliamentary stint.
Her professional background is in law.
According to the party, Salie previously worked as a State Advocate and with the Office of the Family Advocate, with experience involving family law, children, gender-based violence and vulnerable people.
Al Jama-ah is positioning that legal and governance experience as part of its argument that she can provide oversight and accountability in the city administration.
Those claims form part of the party’s campaign case and will ultimately be tested against competing parties’ records and proposals.
Campaign to focus on housing, services and vulnerable communities
Al Jama-ah says Salie’s campaign will place particular emphasis on housing and land, municipal services, indigent support, social development and the position of vulnerable and working-class households.
The party is also highlighting community safety and gender-based violence as areas where her legal background informs her political priorities.
Salie said leadership should remain connected to residents rather than operate above communities.
Her candidacy also reflects Al Jama-ah’s attempt to broaden its appeal beyond the Muslim constituencies with which the party has traditionally been most closely associated.
The party says it is campaigning on a platform of justice, dignity, accountability and service across communities irrespective of faith.
Cape Town contest remains centred on DA majority
Al Jama-ah enters an election in which the central question is whether the DA can retain outright control of Cape Town.
The DA has governed the metro with a majority since 2011.
Its 2026 ticket is again headed by Hill-Lewis, with senior councillors JP Smith and Xanthea Limberg among the prominent figures on its candidate list.
The EFF is contesting under mayoral candidate Nontando Nolutshungu, who has placed housing, transport, crime and spatial inequality at the centre of her campaign.
The ANC is also seeking to rebuild its representation in the city.
That makes the contest different from Johannesburg, Tshwane and several other metros where coalition government is already established.
Opposition parties in Cape Town first have to reduce or eliminate the DA’s majority before coalition arithmetic becomes decisive.
Al Jama-ah has previous Cape Town representation
Al Jama-ah is not entering Cape Town council politics for the first time.
The party secured representation in the current council after the 2021 local government elections, with Salie among its councillors during the term.
Her move between municipal and national office has also given her experience across both spheres of government.
Salie was sworn into the National Assembly in July 2024 and served on parliamentary committees including Justice and Constitutional Development, International Relations and Cooperation, and Sport, Arts and Culture.
She subsequently left Parliament and returned to the Cape Town council.
That makes her mayoral candidacy part of a wider pattern in the 2026 election in which parties are deploying politicians with national or provincial experience into metropolitan races.
Smaller parties could still influence council arithmetic
Al Jama-ah is not regarded as a frontrunner to win an outright majority in Cape Town.
Its electoral significance could instead lie in the composition of the council if the DA falls below 50%.
A fragmented result would increase the bargaining importance of smaller parties in negotiations over a governing coalition.
That possibility makes the performance of parties with established but comparatively small municipal support relevant even where they are unlikely to win the mayoralty directly.
The same dynamic has shaped coalition politics in Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Nelson Mandela Bay during the current municipal term.
Cape Town has largely avoided that instability because of the DA’s majority.
Ward 60 gives Salie a direct constituency contest
Salie’s candidacy in Ward 60 means she is seeking a direct constituency mandate as well as serving as the party’s mayoral face.
Ward candidates compete directly for individual seats, while proportional-representation seats are allocated separately to ensure that the overall composition of council broadly reflects each party’s share of the vote.
A mayoral candidate does not appear on a separate mayoral ballot.
Cape Town residents elect councillors, and the newly constituted council then elects the executive mayor.
Salie would therefore need to enter the council through a ward victory or the party’s proportional-representation arrangements before she could be elected mayor.
Campaign enters final six weeks
The Electoral Commission has certified 136,790 candidates nationally for the 4 November elections, including more than 14,000 in the Western Cape.
Parties are now entering the intensive final phase of campaigning after signing the Electoral Code of Conduct and beginning inspection of sample ballot papers.
Cape Town remains one of the most important municipal prizes.
It is the only one of South Africa’s eight metros currently governed by a single party with a clear majority, making the DA’s ability to retain that position a significant test of its urban electoral strength.
For Al Jama-ah, Salie’s candidacy gives the party an experienced municipal and parliamentary figure around whom to organise its campaign.
The electoral test will be whether that profile can translate into increased representation — and whether smaller parties become consequential to the formation of Cape Town’s next government after 4 November.
