The ANC says it will pursue an appeal after the Electoral Court dismissed its challenge over the submission of candidate information.
By Mapaballo Borotho
The African National Congress (ANC) will be without 181 of its councillor candidates across six municipalities in the upcoming local government elections following an Electoral Court ruling.
The court on Wednesday, 16 September 2026, dismissed the ANC’s challenge against the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) over the exclusion of the candidates.
The affected municipalities are 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.
The ANC failed to complete the submission of its candidate information for the affected municipalities before the IEC’s deadline.
The IEC set 28 August 2026 as the deadline for political parties to submit their candidate nominations.
The ANC says it had entered the information for candidates before the deadline, but was unable to complete the final submission process for candidates in six municipalities.
The party further blamed technical problems with the IEC’s online system, saying the candidate information had already been captured on the system before the deadline.
The IEC’s position was different: it said the ANC had not completed the required final submission before the deadline. The IEC also rejected the claim that its system had experienced the kind of technical problems alleged by the ANC.
The ANC wanted the Electoral Court to order the IEC to accept those candidate nominations and allow the affected candidates to contest the elections. However, its case was dismissed on 16 September 2026.
“The ANC has noted the judgment of the Electoral Court concerning the dispute over the submission of the party’s candidate information in the affected municipalities.
The ANC respects the court and the judicial process, as well as the IEC. Having considered the judgment, the ANC will exercise its legal rights and pursue the appropriate appeal processes,” ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said.
Meanwhile, more than 100,000 candidates are set to contest the 4 November 2026 local elections.
The IEC confirmed this on Wednesday, 16 September 2026. This number is significantly higher than the 95,421 candidates who contested the 2021 local elections.
The candidates will contest seats across the country’s metropolitan, district and local municipalities.
“We went to the media and indicated that there were over 141,000 candidates that we received and now we are sitting with 136,790, meaning more than 45,000 could not meet the requirements. The issue relating to the ANC is the matter before the court, and the court ruled on the issue, and we as the IEC are proceeding on that court judgment,” said IEC General Manager for Electoral Operations James Aphane.
Aphane was speaking on Kaya 959’s Point of View with Phemelo Motene.
He says participation has increased substantially in this year’s elections.
Listen to the podcast for the full conversation. Kaya 959 podcasts are available for download.
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