MK Party asks IEC to explain why its candidate-list changes were rejected
The party says the commission has not shown whether it was judged by the same standard it applied to the ANC and 32 other parties after the Constitutional Court's October 15 ruling.
The MK Party has challenged the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s rejection of its requests to amend its candidate lists for the November 4 local government elections, and wants the commission to say in writing why it refused and on what legal basis.
IOL reported the party’s challenge on 24 October. The party’s national spokesperson, Sifiso Mahlangu, said it had asked for changes to ward candidate placements, for candidates left off the lists to be added, and for candidates who had died to be removed.
In a response dated 20 October, the commission held that the Constitutional Court’s judgment in the ANC v IEC matter did not reopen the nomination process beyond restoring nominations already captured on its online system before nominations closed.
The court ruled for the ANC on 15 October, ordering the commission to reinstate 181 candidates whose details the party said had been captured on the online system before the 28 August deadline but not finally submitted. The commission then extended relief to 32 other parties it considered to be in similar circumstances.
The MK Party’s question is whether it was given the same opportunity to have its circumstances assessed. Mahlangu said the party’s proposed amendments were not trivial administrative issues and that they affected its candidates, its organisational preparations and its participation in the election.
“These are reasonable questions that go to the heart of fairness and accountability,” he said. “The IEC must answer them with facts, documentation and law, not evasions.”
The party has also asked whether the ANC received any procedural accommodation beyond the relief the court granted, and if so what legal basis supported it, and whether the commission applied the same criteria when it assessed the MK Party’s requests.
The MK Party cited earlier concerns about the commission’s administration of elections, including an interruption to its live results dashboard during the 2024 general elections and the disclosure of candidate lists. It also raised allegations against commission chairperson Janet Love, whom Congolese opposition figures have accused of helping to legitimise an allegedly fabricated voter register in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and referred to the R1.2 million fraud, theft and money-laundering charges faced by deputy chairperson Nomsa Masuku in connection with her former employment at Standard Bank. Those are the party’s references to existing matters, not findings this paper makes.
“The current dispute over candidate lists reinforces our distrust in the Commission,” Mahlangu said. He said the party would keep pursuing the matter through lawful channels and would not abandon its affected candidates.
With the poll nine days away, the practical question for voters in affected wards is whose names appear on the ballot paper. Candidate lists close the field a party can offer, and a change refused at this stage cannot be made good by a campaign in the remaining days.
The commission’s position rests on a narrow reading of the court’s order: that it restored what was already on its system and did not reopen nominations. The MK Party is asking whether that reading was applied evenly, which is a question about the commission’s records as much as about its law.
