The governing party narrowly avoided being shut out of six municipalities after convincing the country’s top court that a technical oversight should not cost it 181 candidates.

Justice Rammaka Mathopo delivered the ruling this morning, ordering the Electoral Court’s previous decision to be set aside. The judgement allows the ANC to contest ward and proportional representation seats across municipalities in three provinces where its candidate submissions had been rejected.

The disputed municipalities are Sundays River, Walter Sisulu, Ngquza Hill and Port St John in the Eastern Cape, Mangaung in the Free State, and uMshwathi in KwaZulu-Natal.

Technical glitch or procedural failure?

At the heart of the dispute was whether the party’s failure to click a final submission button on the Independent Electoral Commission’s online portal should invalidate its entries. Advocate Daniel Berger, representing the ANC, told the court this week that the data had uploaded to the IEC’s system before the deadline, making the final button click a technical formality rather than a legal requirement.

The court majority sided with this argument, though Justices Annali Basson and Katherine Savage dissented. Mathopo did not explain the reasoning behind the ruling, saying only that full reasons would follow later.

The decision forces the IEC to reprint ballots in all six municipalities. The commission had previously argued it possessed the authority to set submission frameworks, pointing out that its online candidate nomination system had operated for 10 years without incident.

“The OCNS was introduced in 2016 and used in all elections since then. The ANC has been using the OCNS,” the IEC’s answering affidavit stated, adding that setting deadlines and submission methods fell within its statutory powers.

Emotional victory for Mbalula

Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula appeared close to tears as he addressed the media outside the Constitutional Court, invoking the site’s history as a former prison.

“On this hill, our people were once held in cells for demanding the very thing that has been decided inside this building today,” Mbalula said, his voice breaking.

The secretary-general thanked President Cyril Ramaphosa and the party’s leadership for standing with him “during a difficult month”. He insisted the ANC had no interest in winning elections through anything other than proper democratic process.

“We do not wish to win an election by any route other than the ballot. That is the character of this movement and today it has been vindicated,” Mbalula said.

DA raises alarm over precedent

The Democratic Alliance accepted the ruling but warned it could undermine compliance with electoral deadlines. Federal Council Chairperson Ashor Sarupen said courts had historically demanded strict adherence to such cut-off dates.

“The judgement raises serious concerns about the precedent it sets for complying with the IEC’s deadlines and requirements, as the courts have held that strict mechanical compliance applies to deadlines in every matter up to now,” Sarupen said in a statement.

He suggested the legal victory would do little to reverse the ANC’s declining electoral support.

“The ANC has now succeeded in court to undoing their own failure to submit candidate lists in six municipalities. However, this will not change their electoral fortunes. The ANC is in terminal decline, and across South Africa its support is at record lows,” Sarupen said.

The DA official responded to what he described as threats from Mbalula regarding the Government of National Unity, saying his party would continue defending the rule of law.

“The reality is that the DA is not in the GNU to go along to get along, and we will vigorously defend the rule of law and the equal application of the law. At present, we are completely focused on winning in towns and cities, and removing the ANC because they have destroyed those municipalities,” Sarupen said.

The DA has fielded candidates in every ward across all municipalities ahead of the 4 November elections.

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