IEC to clarify status of 23 parties hit by candidate list exclusion

The Electoral Commission says there could be an announcement this evening regarding a way forward with the other political parties that challenged the candidate list exclusion.

This comes after the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the ANC, allowing their members to now be included on the ballot papers for the November 4th elections.

IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo says since they have completed an analysis of the nominations of those 44 parties, the list has shrunk to 23.

“The number has whittled down to 23, and that would mean they had captured by 5 on the 28th, they had a compliant list, and they had paid a deposit.

So, those parties are similarly situated as the ANC.

Currently, the commission is in consultation to take an approach in relation to those parties, and we should be in a position by early evening to make an announcement as to how those will be treated,” says Mamabolo.

Analysis of the Constitutional Court ruling in favour of the ANC: The Afrika Mayibuye Movement says the Constitutional Court ruling in favour of the ANC raises questions about the IEC’s online candidate nomination system ahead of the local government elections next month.

The ConCourt upheld the ANC’s appeal over the exclusion of 181 candidates across six municipalities.

The movement’s National Spokesperson Sydney Baloyi argues that similar submission difficulties affected numerous parties and thousands of candidates.

“The IEC had already publicly indicated that numerous parties and thousands of candidates were affected by the same final submission difficulties.

This scale is definitely enough evidence to show that the matter cannot fairly be dismissed as isolated carelessness.

It points to a genuine difficulty in the relationship between the legal requirements and the design or operation of the online system,” he says.

The United Democratic Movement is calling on the IEC to urgently engage affected political parties following the Constitutional Court’s ruling on candidate nominations for the November local government elections.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa says the ruling presents an opportunity to address concerns about the reliability and transparency of the IEC’s online nomination system.