Our charts are free to reuse, with a credit and a link
This page is for journalists, editors and researchers who want to use MzansiData's charts, link to the elections tracker, or ask us a question.
MzansiData turns South Africa's public data into charts and explainers
MzansiData publishes charts, explainers and tools based on data that South African institutions release about the country: Stats SA, the Reserve Bank, the Electoral Commission (IEC) and others. Every chart has a source line naming the publisher, the dataset and the release date, and the code that fetches and processes the data is kept with the site, so any figure can be traced back to its source. The site is non-partisan: it reports what the data shows and leaves conclusions about policy to readers.
MzansiData is made by people working with AI. AI tools help find and process the data and draft each post, and a person checks the figures and approves every post before it is published. It is a project by Bridgewaiv. More on how we work is on the About page.
For the 2026 local government elections on 4 November, the local elections tracker shows council-by-council results from the IEC as they are counted, compared with 2021.
You can reuse our charts if you credit MzansiData and link to us
You may republish, screenshot or adapt any MzansiData chart, in print, online or on air, without asking first and without paying. Please do three things:
- Credit MzansiData and link to the page the chart comes from (or to mzansidata.co.za, in print and on air).
- Keep the original data source in the credit. The source is in the line under each chart.
- If you change the chart, say so, and don't change it in a way that alters what the data shows.
Use this credit line, replacing the source with the one under the chart you use:
For the elections tracker the credit line above is complete as it stands. On air, "MzansiData, using IEC results" is enough.
The underlying data belongs to its publishers, and their own terms apply to the raw data. The sources section below lists them. Our text (as opposed to our charts) may be quoted with a credit and a link in the usual way; please ask before republishing a whole post.
Link to the tracker; it can't be embedded in a frame
For security, the site doesn't allow its pages to be shown inside another site's frame, so an iframe embed won't work. Link to the tracker instead. A link shared on social media or in a messaging app shows the tracker's share card. To show the card on your own page, paste this snippet:
Useful links into the tracker:
- The whole tracker: mzansidata.co.za/elections/local-2026
- The eight metros: mzansidata.co.za/elections/local-2026#the-metros
- Councils that could depend on coalitions: mzansidata.co.za/elections/local-2026#kingmaker-councils
- Look up any council: mzansidata.co.za/elections/local-2026#look-up-a-council
The tracker's share image is at mzansidata.co.za/og/local-elections-2026.png (1 200 × 630 pixels), and you may use it to illustrate a link to the tracker. During the count the site checks for new IEC results every 15 minutes and updates the tracker when they arrive, so a screenshot should give the time it was taken.
Our sources and their terms
| Data | Publisher | Used for | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local government election results, 2021 and 2026 | Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), results.elections.org.za | The elections tracker | Published by the IEC for public use. We found no formal open licence; credit the IEC as the source. |
| Municipal boundaries, 2026 | Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), results map data | The tracker's map | As above |
| Anthropic Economic Index | Anthropic, anthropic.com/economic-index | How South Africans use Claude | CC BY 4.0 |
| Other datasets | Named in the source line under each chart | Each post | The publisher's terms; the catalogue entry for each source notes them |
If a publisher's terms limit reuse of a dataset, the post that uses it says so.
Contact
Write to hello@mzansidata.co.za for questions about our data or methods, interview requests, or the underlying figures behind a chart. You can also use the contact form. Corrections are welcome by either route, and are noted in the post they apply to.
Logo and colours
The mark is a converging Y in the colours of the national flag, on a dark square. Use it as supplied, on a plain background, and don't recolour or stretch it. Write the name as MzansiData, one word with a capital D.
The site's colours are below. The four flag colours in the mark and the hairline at the top of each page are always used together, never one or two on their own, so that no colour reads as a party's.
The page hairline uses the flag's own blue (#001489), green (#007749) and black alongside the red and gold. The mark uses the lighter blue and green above so that they show on the dark square.