The African National Congress (ANC) has defended its handling of candidate nominations for the 4 November local government elections, saying it lodged 9 128 candidates but that 181 of its candidates were not recorded by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) as formally submitted before the deadline.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula made the comments during a media briefing on Tuesday, as the party sought to set out its version of events after days of reports about problems with its candidate lists.
The dispute is now before the Electoral Court after the ANC filed an application on 4 September challenging the IEC’s decision.
Mbalula stressed that the matter was sub judice and said he would not argue the merits of the case publicly.
“The Electoral Court will decide, and the ANC will abide,” he said.
According to Mbalula, the ANC lodged 9 128 candidates across all nine provinces. Of these, 4 366 were registered on the ward ballot and 4 581 on the proportional representation ballot, giving the party 8 947 candidates recorded by the IEC.
He said this represented 97% of ward seats and 90% of proportional representation seats nationally.
However, 181 ANC candidates were captured on the IEC’s system but did not complete the final electronic submission process before the 5 pm deadline on 28 August.
Mbalula said 130 of the affected candidates were on proportional representation lists and 51 were ward candidates.
The affected councils are Ngquza Hill and Port St Johns, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, uMshwathi in KwaZulu-Natal and Mangaung in the Free State.
The ANC says the problem was linked to difficulties experienced while using the IEC’s electronic nomination system.
The IEC has disputed the party’s characterisation of the process.
The commission said 2 274 prospective candidates from 45 political parties had their details captured on its Online Candidate Nomination System but had not been formally submitted by the 5 pm deadline. This included 1 794 ward candidates and 480 proportional representation candidates.
The IEC’s position is that these candidates were not formally submitted and are therefore not currently in contention for the election.
The commission has also said the online system was available from 21 June, weeks before the official nomination deadline, and maintained that it had not recorded a system failure that prevented parties from submitting their candidates.
IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the commission had no record of the system becoming non-functional on the deadline day.
Mbalula, however, said the ANC was not seeking special treatment from the IEC.
He said the party’s legal challenge was based on its argument that candidates whose details had been completed and uploaded onto the IEC’s system before the deadline should be regarded as having been submitted.
The ANC is asking the Electoral Court to set aside the IEC’s decision and declare that its lists for the six affected councils were submitted lawfully and on time.
Mbalula said any relief granted by the court should apply equally to all affected political parties.
According to the ANC, the IEC’s own figures show that 2 274 candidates from 45 parties are in the same position.
“If the ANC succeeds, two thousand and ninety-three candidates who are not ours succeed with us,” Mbalula said, referring to the other affected candidates.
The IEC has previously said it will not provide an additional opportunity for parties or independent candidates to complete submissions after the deadline. It has also said the issue can be dealt with through the National Political Liaison Committee and the courts.
The dispute has also raised questions about the ANC’s internal candidate selection and verification processes.
Mbalula said the ANC began loading candidates onto the IEC system from 13 July, following a lengthy nomination process involving branches, communities, provincial structures and national structures.
He said the ANC’s Electoral Committee, chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, compiled the lists, while provincial list committees verified them before provincial executives ratified them.
The National Executive Committee approved the lists on 25 August and ratified them on 27 August, one day before the deadline.
Mbalula also addressed reports of alleged wrongdoing or interference with the ANC’s candidate lists.
He urged anyone with evidence of wrongdoing or tampering to bring it forward through the party’s structures.
“I will not conduct the movement’s business through unnamed comrades in the Sunday papers,” he said.
The ANC secretary general also rejected suggestions that the party was attacking the IEC.
He said the ANC continued to regard the IEC as an important constitutional institution and disagreed with it only on the interpretation of the law surrounding the candidate submissions.
The IEC has similarly maintained that its decision is based on the legal requirement that nominations must be formally submitted by the statutory deadline.
The commission has recorded 142 072 candidate nominations for the 2026 local government elections, significantly more than in 2021. It is now conducting the verification process, with the final candidate lists scheduled for publication on 16 September.
The ANC has also proposed changes to the electronic nomination system after the elections, including requiring a formal electronic receipt for final submissions and clearer regulations governing the final submission step.
For now, however, the central question remains before the Electoral Court: whether candidate information captured and uploaded on the IEC’s system before the deadline but not completing the final electronic submission should legally be regarded as having been submitted.
The court’s decision will determine whether the affected ANC candidates, as well as other candidates caught in the same dispute, can participate in the 4 November elections.
