ANC asks ConCourt to put 181 councillors back on the 4 November ballot

The ANC has asked the Constitutional Court to overturn an Electoral Court ruling and order the Electoral Commission of South Africa to place 181 of its candidate councillors on the 4 November ballot.

As the Mail & Guardian reported on 23 September, the party filed its papers in the Constitutional Court on Wednesday. The Electoral Court ruled last week in the IEC’s favour and barred the 181 candidates.

The dispute turns on a single step in the IEC’s Online Candidate Nomination System, the portal parties use to file their candidate lists. The ANC missed the commission’s 5pm deadline on 28 August for six municipalities. Its explanation is that the names and supporting documents were captured in the IEC’s system but that its administrators did not press the button labelled “submit as final” before the cut-off.

In papers filed in the Constitutional Court, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the party’s administrators could not press that button “for reasons beyond their control”. He said the IEC’s position is that without that click, no nomination was submitted in those municipalities, and that candidates whose complete particulars and documents were already sitting in the commission’s database were treated as though they had never been submitted at all.

That, Mbalula argues, is the whole appeal. He frames it as a question of law: whether pressing “submit as final” is a condition of a valid electronic submission under sections 14 and 17 of the Electoral Act, or merely an administrative step inside the commission’s software that neither the Act nor the regulations require.

The party says it is not asking for more time. Mbalula said the ANC accepts the statutory cut-off of 5pm on 28 August 2026 and wants recognition only of what was already in the IEC’s system at that moment, with no addition, substitution, alteration or reordering afterwards. He said the nominations in the six affected municipalities were complete and all deposits had been paid in full, and that the principle it advances would apply on the same terms to every party and independent candidate in the same position.

The ANC has also narrowed the factual fight. Mbalula said it is not asking the court to decide whether the nomination system malfunctioned on the afternoon of 28 August, which he described as disputed but immaterial. For the purposes of the appeal, he said, the ANC accepts the commission’s version of how its system functioned. If the ANC is right about the meaning of “submit”, it succeeds whatever the system did. If it is wrong, he said, no evidence about the system can assist it.

That argument is what gives the case a reach well beyond the governing party. On the IEC’s own figures, cited in the ANC’s papers, 2 274 candidates from 45 political parties were captured on the nomination system but not finally submitted by the 17:00 cut-off on 28 August. Of those, 480 are proportional representation candidates and 1 794 are ward candidates. The commission has described the ward nominations as having been captured on time.

Mbalula said the IEC excluded those 2 274 candidates on the strength of the construction it adopted, and that voters in the affected municipalities and wards were deprived of choices that section 19 of the Constitution exists to protect. Section 19 guarantees every citizen the right to free, fair and regular elections and the right to vote.

For voters, the practical question is narrower than the constitutional argument. Six municipalities would contest their council seats without the ANC candidates whose names sat in the IEC’s database on the afternoon of 28 August, unless the Constitutional Court intervenes before 4 November. Should the court find for the ANC, the same reasoning would open the door for candidates from the other 44 parties in the same position.

Should it find for the commission, the cut-off stands as the IEC has applied it, and the final click carries the legal weight the commission says it does.

No date has been set for the Constitutional Court to hear the matter. The municipal elections are due on 4 November.

Source: Mail & Guardian, ANC heads to ConCourt in bid to get 181 councillors on ballot