Trouble-ridden ANC has taken its municipal-election nomination dispute with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) over 181 candidates to the Constitutional Court. The party is seeking the right for its candidates to contest in six municipalities in the Local Government Election and overturn the Electoral Court order.
The ConCourt has set Monday, 5 October, to hear the case and the outcome will be fully binding on both the ANC and the IEC. If the ConCourt rules in favour of the ANC, the IEC will be ordered to add the 181 excluded ANC candidates to the final ballot lists for the upcoming local government elections.
This last-ditch effort by the ANC in the ConCourt came after an unfavourable judgement in the Electoral Court in Bloemfontein on 16 September in its bid to compel the IEC to reinstate 181 councillor candidates. The Electoral Court dismissed the party’s application after finding no evidence of the technical glitches the ANC alleged.
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The party initially cited that its failure to finalise the submission across six municipalities was due to technical failures and system glitches on the IEC’s platform. However, this argument was rejected as the IEC provided audit logs and detailed evidence demonstrating that the Online candidate nomination system (OCNS) on its portal was fully functional and working correctly leading up to the 17:00 deadline of 28 August.
The Commission had set 28 August as deadline for all political parties and candidates to submit their nominations to participate in the upcoming Local Government Election. Evidence presented revealed the ANC’s failure to click “submit as final” on its electronic candidate nominations by the deadline. The evidence showed the ANC successfully used the exact same system on IEC’s portal to fully submit candidate lists in 251 other municipalities across the country – contrary to the party’s alleged technical failures and system glitches.
Further proof that the IEC’s OCNS was functioning was the successful submission of candidates by opposition parties. The Commission further submitted in the Electoral Court the rule has been in place over a decade, and that political parties obliged including the aggrieve ANC.
