By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte. Image: Twitter @DKNOnline.
The ANC is set to finalise a list of 10,000 candidates for local government elections, ahead of the Independent Electoral Commission’s deadline for submission of candidate names.
The deadline for submission of candidates is Monday, 23 August.
The move comes after the Constitutional Court reserved judgement on Friday whether the municipal elections should be postponed to next year as per the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) recommendation – or to continue with the initial date of Friday, 27 October.
The party’s deputy secretary, Jessie Duarte, said: “The ANC has successfully applied to be joined as a party to the IEC’s application for extension of the local government elections, based on the recommendations of the inquiry by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
“The ANC has strengthened its candidate selection process to ensure that the most credible, representative and capable team of ANC councillors are selected to contest the elections.”
The national working committee (NWC), which met virtually on Monday, 16 August, to conduct its ongoing work said the candidate selection process will be overseen by the ANC’s electoral committee, chaired by Kgalema Motlanthe.
“The ANC rules for candidate selection provide for maximum popular participation in the choice of who should represent the people as ward councillors.”
Duarte said, where communities preferred a different candidate from the four nominated by the ANC branch, they were asked to nominate an additional ANC candidate.
“The final candidate was chosen from among all nominees in an open community vote across all voting districts in the ward.
“The person, who received the most votes, is now the ANC ward candidate, provided they comply with the requirements set out in the Constitution and the ANC rules for candidate selection,” she said.
ANC PR candidates, nominated by ANC branches, would be subjected to a vetting and screening process, as well as approval by extended provincial executive committees, which would include alliance partners, the SACP and Cosatu.
Meanwhile the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) argued on Friday that it was correct to approach the Constitutional Court to have the local government elections postponed, and that approaching Parliament would have set a bad precedent.
The IEC, represented by advocates Wim Trengove, SC, and Steve Budlender, SC, wants the 27 October elections postponed to next year, saying that it’s not possible to hold free and fair elections during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The electoral body wants the court to declare that it can hold the local elections outside of the required 90-day period, which started on 3 August and ends on 1 November, and to direct that the elections can be held no later than February next year.
The Constitutional Court has reserved judgment in the application in which the IEC, and a number of political parties and civil society organisations presented arguments on Friday.