ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba has used his track record as the mayor of Johannesburg in his party's final push to lure voters ahead of Monday's municipal elections.

The party faced challenges en route to contesting its first elections - the biggest was the controversy over how the party appeared on electoral ballots.

It was a battle the party lost in the Electoral Court of SA and had resulted in its name not appearing on ballots to be distributed for ward candidates.

Its name would instead appear on proportional representation ballots.

At a rally held on Thursday in the Joburg CBD, Mashaba said despite the challenges, the party was well on its way to making inroads in various municipalities.

Mashaba told scores of supporters that the party could be trusted. The party is competing for seats in Joburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and in KwaZulu-Natal. 

The former Johannesburg mayor's speech relied heavily on his track record in the metro. 

He said when he was mayor, for three years, he was able to expand the metro police department by more than 1 000 officers. He said this saw scores of arrests increase in his term of office than at any other time.

He said if he would return to power, the party would produce a CCTV network that would expand the work done by the department.

The former mayor also claimed his tenure saw the expansion of clinic hours, electricity was provided to communities and houses were built.

He said businesses had operated in comfort while he was in charge and that abandoned buildings were distributed, and plans were in place to build 25 000 affordable housing accommodation.

Mashaba said expansion of this work was possible if his party managed to win as many seats as possible in municipalities.

He repeated his previous statements that the party would never go into a coalition with the African National Congress (ANC). 

Mashaba said, "ActionSA will never go into a coalition with the ANC. You cannot fix the problem by partnering with the cause of the problem. Voters want an alternative to the ANC and ActionSA is that party."

He added that ActionSA was open and willing to work with other political parties in an open manner. 

Mashaba said the party's focus was for the national elections in 2024.

ActionSA tracking poll

ActionSA claimed its internal tracking poll put it ahead in Joburg and with a 3% margin of being the biggest party in Tshwane.

The poll was conducted with about 1 000 residents in each metro.

Mashaba told News24 that, despite criticism that it was too small a sample size, this poll was accurate and that it also spoke to the threat faced by the Democratic Alliance against the possible rise of ActionSA.

"With the numbers that we got; ours (polling) we believe. Yes, the polling can have a margin of error, but I can tell you that an error would be less than 5%. At the end of the day, you can run research and polling, but the decision will be made on Monday by the voters," Mashaba said.