ConCourt lets ANC back onto the ballot in six municipalities after 181 candidates missed the IEC deadline

The ANC will contest all municipalities in the November 4 local government elections after the Constitutional Court upheld its appeal against the Electoral Commission of South Africa, reversing a ruling that had excluded 181 of its candidates across six municipalities.

As Sunday World reported on 15 October, the court found for the ANC, allowing the party to field candidates in municipalities where it had missed the registration deadline. The dispute turned on a single step in the IEC’s online candidate nomination system. The ANC failed to press the “Submit as Final” button before the deadline closed, and 181 of its candidates were left off the ballot in six municipalities as a result.

The party argued that technical glitches and system barriers prevented it from completing the final submission. The IEC maintained that uploading candidate information is a separate act from formally submitting it, and that parties were aware the finalisation step was mandatory. The Electoral Court heard the matter first and ruled for the IEC, which sent the ANC on an urgent appeal to the country’s highest court.

That appeal has now succeeded. The practical effect is that the ANC’s candidates in those six municipalities are back on the ballot for 4 November, and voters in those areas will see the party’s name alongside the others when they go to the polls.

The judgment is still developing and the full reasons had not yet been made available at the time of writing. Until the court’s reasoning is published, the basis on which the appeal was upheld remains to be set out in detail.

The IEC’s online nomination system has been the subject of dispute before, and the “Submit as Final” step has been a recurring point of friction for parties navigating the platform. The commission’s position throughout has been that the step is a clear and necessary part of the process, not a technicality, and that every party was working to the same rules and the same deadline.

The ANC’s argument that the system itself created barriers it could not overcome is now the argument the Constitutional Court has accepted, at least in outcome. What the court’s reasoning will mean for how the IEC runs candidate nominations in future elections, and whether the commission is expected to change the system or its guidance to parties, is not yet clear from the material available.

For voters in the six affected municipalities, the immediate consequence is straightforward. Candidates who had been excluded will appear on the ballot, and the contest in those areas will proceed with the ANC present. The elections are set for 4 November.