ANC races to beat IEC deadline as Eastern Cape dispute clouds election preparations

The ANC’s candidates lists are being ratified by the NEC ahead of Friday’s IEC deadline, with the party preparing to field more than 10,000 candidates in the local government elections. All that remained yesterday was for secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, pictured, to approve the lists.

The ANC says it will field more than 10,000 candidates in the November 4 local government elections as it pushes to finalise its lists ahead of the Electoral Commission of South Africa's (IEC) Friday deadline, amid ongoing candidate disputes in the Eastern Cape.

The party will field 4,488 ward councillor candidates and 6,000 proportional representation (PR) candidates, with ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu describing the campaign as “wall-to-wall”.

Bhengu was speaking on the sidelines of the ANC’s extended National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Thursday, where the party is finalising and ratifying its candidate lists ahead of their submission to the IEC.

Bhengu said the number of candidates reflected the ANC’s intention to contest elections across the country, with the party seeking to have a presence in every municipality and district.

The ANC was confident its nationwide presence would become evident once the list process was concluded and the party took its campaign to the ground.

Bhengu said the NEC was working through the provincial lists and that the process was expected to comply with the ANC’s candidate selection rules and guidelines.

The NEC had already considered the lists from Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, with the process continuing through the remaining provinces.

Bhengu said the party was also assessing the balance of its candidate lists, particularly the representation of women and young people.

The party was considering both substantive and descriptive representation of women to ensure they were meaningfully represented on the lists.

The ANC was also working to ensure that young people were adequately represented as part of the list-balancing process.

Bhengu said the ANC was satisfied with the work done by its branches and the extent to which community input had been considered during the candidate selection process.

The ANC has until 5 pm on Friday to submit its candidate lists to the IEC.

Bhengu said the party had already begun loading candidates onto the IEC system, with several provinces having been processed.