By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Electoral Court handed a judgment on Friday, 04 September 2026, that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) cannot give an extension to a political party that missed the 28 Aug deadline for submitting list of candidates.
The ruling follows a recently registered political party, United Democratic Front Party (UDFP) application seeking exemption or use of placeholder candidates.
The party challenged a decision by the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer refusal to register its proposed abbreviated name, “UDFP”.
It anticipated missing the candidate nomination deadline for the local government elections and asked the Electoral Court to force the IEC to grant it a special exemption.
It contended that the IEC should have used its powers under Section 11(2)(a) of the local government: Municipal Electoral Act 27 of 2000 to amend the election timetable in the interest of ensuring a free and fair election.
In his judgement, Judge Leicester Adams said, “The Electoral Commission is empowered only to amend timetable generally where necessary for free and fair election.
Judge Adams said the IEC has no power to condone non-compliance with a deadline in the Electoral Timetable.
Furthermore, the court noted that under Sections 11(3) and 17 of the Municipal Electoral Act, all acts relating to ward nominations must be completed by the exact date and time stipulated in the official timetable. Consequently, the Commission possesses no statutory power to condone late ward nominations.
The judgment emphasised that strict adherence to electoral timetables is fundamental to protecting the integrity of the democratic process.
It stressed that uniform deadlines promote equity among political parties and independent candidates, enable the IEC to administer elections efficiently and impartially, and ensure that the public perceives the elections as genuinely free and fair.
Allowing an individual party to bypass these deadlines would prejudice compliant participants and compromise the Commission’s neutrality, it argued.
The court similarly dismissed the “placeholder” candidate proposal. It ruled that the mechanism would effectively permit new ward nominations after the prescribed deadline, which violates the strict and limited substitution frameworks permitted under the Municipal Electoral Act.
The court also highlighted a further legal hurdle under Section 69(1) of the Act, noting that the proposal involved nominating individuals in wards that the party, by its own admission, did not genuinely intend to contest.
Ultimately, the Electoral Court found that the applicant’s predicament was largely self-created, Judge Adams dismissed UDFP application.
This is also in direct response to comments made by the African National Congress (ANC) president Cyril Ramaphosa that the party is considering approaching the Electoral Court to lodge a complaint over alleged technical glitches on the IEC’s candidate-capture system.
According to Ramaphosa, these technical glitches impacted several political parties, leaving a small number of the entries incomplete.
The ANC and the IEC have been at loggerheads after the party failed to submit its lists for some Eastern Cape and Free State municipalities before the deadline.
The ANC claims a glitch on the IEC’s online portal prevented it from completing the process, but the commission has vehemently rejected those claims.
This means the ANC will be unable to field councillor candidates in the affected municipalities. The ANC had initially claimed it was in talks with the IEC to reopen its candidate submission portal so it could complete the process.
Read the full judgement here: https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAEC/2026/4.pdf.