Court orders 181 ANC candidates onto election ballot

The Constitutional Court on October 15 ordered the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to include 181 African National Congress (ANC) candidates in the November 4 local government elections, overturning an Electoral Court decision that had upheld their exclusion. The order applies to ANC candidate lists and ward nominations in six municipalities: Port St Johns, Ngquza Hill, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape; Mangaung in the Free State; and uMshwathi in KwaZulu-Natal. The IEC must take the steps needed to put the nominations on the ballot. The court granted the ANC leave to appeal and set aside the earlier ruling. The dispute arose after the ANC’s candidate details were captured on the IEC’s online nomination system but not marked “submit as final” before the 5 p.m. deadline on August 28. The commission said it excluded the nominations because that final step had not been completed. The Electoral Court had upheld the exclusion in a September 16 decision. The ANC argued that it met the legal requirements and that technical problems prevented final submission.