The Electoral Commission (IEC) will extend a Constitutional Court order won by the African National Congress (ANC) to 32 more parties, it said on Friday.
Like the ANC, the 32 parties had nominated compliant candidates and paid their election deposits, but had not submitted their final candidate lists, commission chairperson Mosotho Moepya said at a briefing in Pretoria. The commission had resolved that they “must be deemed to have lawfully submitted their candidates”, he said.
In the commission’s view, leaving out parties in the same position as the ANC would be “irrational and offensive to the principle of parity of treatment”, Moepya said.
The extended order affects 107 municipalities, according to SAnews, the government news agency. It reported that the commission would have to produce 33 million ballot papers to accommodate the extension, of which 27 million had been printed and 6.6 million had not. Those two parts add up to 33.6 million; the report did not explain the difference.
The 32 parties had planned to contest 121 municipalities on metro, local and district ballots, Moepya said. The commission found them through compliance checks. Thirteen other parties did not meet the requirements for lawfully submitting candidates, even with the order extended. The reasons included the payment of election deposits and the voters’ roll requirement to be registered in the municipality being contested, he said.
According to SAnews, the court ordered that the commission’s decision to reject the ANC’s lists be set aside and that the lists be included on the ballot papers. The order requires the commission to include 181 ANC candidates in six municipalities, 51 for wards and 130 on proportional representation lists, SAnews reported. The dispute began when the ANC said a fault on the commission’s online system had stopped it submitting the candidates by the deadline. Our report on the hearing set out both sides’ arguments.
The 6.6 million unprinted ballots affect the six municipalities in the ANC’s appeal, Moepya said. The commission held back their printing until the court ruled, so no costs were incurred for those six, he said.
In a statement on Thursday, the commission said it would “give effect to the order of the Court”. Its position during the case had been guided by its reading of the electoral laws, it said, but it recognised its constitutional duty to carry out the decision.
Next, the commission will contact the 32 parties to ask whether they still intend to stand. Those that do will be able to meet the nomination requirements and, where needed, add names or replace candidates who appear on more than one list. Candidates will then receive their candidature certificates. Moepya said this would happen in a shortened process limited to the 33 parties involved, the ANC and the 32.
He said the commission did not expect the election date to change. Its logistics had been “significantly affected” and would now run in “a very truncated period”, he said.
On Wednesday, 14 October, the commission said more than 66% of 79 million ballot papers had been printed and that production would end on Sunday, 18 October. Special voting takes place on 2 and 3 November, and the local elections follow on 4 November.
