By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa has ruled in favour of the African National Congress (ANC), allowing the party’s candidate lists to be included on the ballot for the 4 November local government elections.
The ANC omitted to click the “submit as final” button on the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) Online Candidate Nomination System (OCNS) before the deadline of 5:00 PM on 28 August 2026.
The party has maintained that the names were filed with the IEC, argued that it forgot to press the “submit” button.
The ANC then filed papers with Constitutional Court over the exclusion of 181 candidates in six municipalities: Port St Johns, Ngquza Hill, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape; Mangaung in the Free State; and uMshwathi in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) after the Electoral Court dismissed its application.
Representing the ANC, advocate Daniel Berger argued that the party had complied with the law by completing the electronic nomination forms and uploading the required annexures before the 5pm deadline.
“The ANC completed all the electronic forms in the system and uploaded all the annexures in the system before the 5pm deadline. Therefore, the ANC complied. The regulation says nothing about an additional or final step after all the annexures have been loaded into the IEC system,” Berger said.
Berger said the ANC is not undermining the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) by raising technical problems with its system. He further said the case centres on how the Electoral Act and regulations should be interpreted.
Advocate Terry Motau SC, representing the IEC, has told the Constitutional Court the commission investigated the alleged system problems but found no evidence to support the claims.
Motau has argued that the ANC initially relied on alleged technical problems to explain its failure to complete the electronic submission process, but is now advancing a different argument based on an interpretation of electoral legislation.
Justice Rammaka Mathopo handed down the ruling on Thursday, 15 October 2026, confirming that the previous order handed by the Electoral Court would be set aside.
Mathopo said Justices Annali Basson and Katherine Savage would have dismissed the appeal, while the decision of the remaining ConCourt Justices comprised the majority ruling.
The ConCourt’s ruling forces the IEC to reprint ballots in the six disputed municipalities, but Mathopo was mum on why the justices had favoured the ANC’s arguments.
“The reasons for this order shall be given at a later stage, “stated Mathopo.
The court also granted condonation for the late filing of the IEC’s answering affidavit and ordered that costs be observed. It said reasons for the order would be provided at a later stage.