By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) has petitioned the Constitutional Court on an urgent basis to appeal the order of the Electoral Court, which dismissed it’s challenge over the submission of candidate lists to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
The party has challenged the IEC over 181 candidates excluded from the November 4 Local Government Elections.
The ANC populated candidate details into the IEC’s online system (OCNS) ahead of the August 28 deadline, but failed to complete the final “submit” click before the cutoff.
The Electoral Court ruled against the ANC, stating that data left unsubmitted on the OCNS does not amount to legal compliance under the Municipal Electoral Act.
In a judgment handed down on Wednesday, 16 September 2026, the court rejected ANC’s argument that its candidates should be accepted because the party had substantially completed the nomination process before the 28 August deadline.
Appearing virtually before the court, the ANC’s legal team, led by advocate Daniel Burger, argued that the party had completed candidate forms, uploaded supporting documents and paid the required deposits. However, it had not completed the “Submit as Final” step on the IEC’s online system before the deadline.
The ANC said that at 4.34pm on deadline day, its administrators were logged out of the system and returned to the landing page. According to the party, the problem was reported to an IEC official at 4.35pm, before its officials were logged out again at 4.57pm.
The IEC therefore treated the nominations as not having been formally submitted.
The party also argued that the Municipal Electoral Act and regulations did not make pressing the “Submit as Final” button a legal requirement. Its case was that it had substantially completed the nomination process and should not lose its candidates because of the final electronic step.
But the IEC, represented by advocate Terry Motau, rejected this argument and said the ANC should be held to its original case that technical glitches had prevented it from completing the submission.
Motau argued that the ANC could have submitted its candidate lists by hand, which would have avoided the dispute over the electronic submission process.
The commission said the dispute over the interpretation of the law had only emerged in the ANC’s court application and was not the basis on which the party had initially raised concerns with the commission.
In its application to apex court, the ANC has repeated a similar argument, saying its administrators had submitted all the necessary details on the IEC’s online portal.
It said that for reasons beyond their control, the administrators could not click the final submit button before the deadline.
The ConCourt is expected to hear the matter on 7 October.
The dispute affects 181 ANC candidates in the six municipalities : Port St Johns, Ngquza Hill, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, uMshwathi in KwaZulu-Natal and Mangaung in the Free State.
Meanwhile Makhanda High Court dsimissed the application by disgruntled members to nullify ANC’s Eastern Cape local government elections candidates list.