Making an X: Ekurhuleni residents vote for their chosen councillors in a by-election held last year. The local government elections are taking place on 1 November but the road to the is not a smooth one for the ANC. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) seemingly threw the ANC a lifeline this week when it reopened candidate registration for the local government elections, paving the way for the party’s candidates who had missed the original 23 August deadline.
But the ANC has not quite dodged the bullet; it still faces a Constitutional Court challenge from the Democratic Alliance — and a number of potential court applications from within its own ranks — before the 359 councillors who failed to make the cut get their names on the ballot papers for the 1 November election.
The failure to meet the deadline would have hurt the ANC badly in 35 municipalities, the majority of which it would have lost control of had the IEC not re-opened the candidate registration process.
The DA has already filed its papers with the court in an attempt to take the IEC decision on review, while disgruntled ANC members from branches in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and North West are preparing to go to court next week should their disputes not be resolved by the party’s list committees by the cut-off date on 11 September.
The DA court challenge comes after IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini announced on Tuesday that the commission would re-open voter registration and with it candidate nomination, on the grounds that once voter registration process concluded, any person on the voters roll generated by that process should be able to stand as a councillor.
The Constitutional Court had earlier dismissed an IEC application to postpone the election until next year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, instructing instead that the commission conduct voter registration, should it be feasible for it to do so before the election date which it said must happen on any day from 27 October to 1 November.
On Wednesday, the cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, proclaimed 1 November as the new election date. Dlamini-Zuma, who is cited as a second respondent in the DA application, declined to comment on the matter, saying it was now sub judice.
The IEC contends that the DA’s application is untenable in law, premature in facts and amounts to “an impermissible attempt by a political party involved in an election to have [the Constitutional Court] second-guess decisions of the commission concerning the proper holding of the elections, midway through the electoral process”.
The ANC has also been scathing in its criticism of the DA’s bid, calling it “irrational” and asking for the court to institute “punitive costs” against the opposition party.
“The DA has made scurrilous and baseless accusations that the ANC is working clandestinely with the IEC or that the IEC has intentionally sought to favour the ANC. The accusation is false and has been made recklessly by the DA,” the ruling party said in court papers, alluding to Twitter comments by DA federal chairperson Helen Zille, which suggested the IEC’s decision to reopen candidate registration was “so that the ANC can fix its disastrous failure”.
“I have no doubt that this was the ANC’s plan all along. Somehow, they had wind of this ‘re-opening’ of the [candidate registration] window as a result of a delayed election — and it is unfolding exactly to plan. This is why [the] ANC withdrew its appeal to the electoral court [for an extension on candidate registration]. It had a fall-back position,” Zille said.
The DA is arguing that the IEC’s ability or power to amend the election timetable must be derived from the Constitutional Court’s order and nothing else and that “once it is shown that the commission’s interpretation of the order is flawed, it follows that the commission cannot reopen candidate nominations”.
The DA’s legal push is not the only headache the ruling party has. The ANC’s internal candidate selection processes have also thrown up potential legal challenges that are likely to start after 12 September, the cut-off date for adjudicating disputes over candidates.
Hundreds of disputes were lodged by ANC branches over candidate selection. The provincial list committees tasked with resolving them ahead of the deadline have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cases before them.
In KwaZulu-Natal, more than 200 disputes were lodged, while in Limpopo the number of matters before the list committee stood at 400 a week before the deadline was set to close.
On Tuesday, ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte wrote to ANC structures informing them that all outstanding community meetings and votes needed to be concluded by 11 September.
“Any unresolved disputes will continue to be dealt with and will be finalised after elections,” she said.
The chances of the ANC resolving the disputes to the branches’ satisfaction are slim because many of the appeals appear to be based on factional issues, rather than a failed process.
In Pietermaritzburg, 37 branches aligned with the radical economic transformation (RET) faction of the party have lodged disputes over the alleged manipulation of the candidate lists by members of the regional task team (RTT).
On Tuesday they met members of the provincial executive committee (PEC) sent to the region and demanded that the individual nomination packages from each branch be audited.
“We want this done because we know the list didn’t reflect the choices of the branches. The candidates we nominated were not those whose names were submitted to Luthuli [House]. An audit of the branch packages will show that the names have been changed by the RTT,” said a member of the ward 35 branch who asked not to be named.
The branch member said ward 35 and other branches would go to court if their issues were not resolved.
Njabulo Mchunu, the spokesperson for a number of eThekwini branches that have been staging protests at the provincial office over the disputed candidates, said their issues had not yet been resolved. “The province seems to be actually interacting with some of the branches and candidates.”
But an impasse had been reached over the proportional representative (PR) candidates list, headed by Thabani Nyawose, a leader of the faction backing President Cyril Ramaphosa, as the most likely mayoral candidate for Durban.
Nyawose was placed at number one, ahead of the RET’s Nkonseza Shezi and councillor Zama Sokhabase, sparking outrage from branches backing Shezi, who they nominated after former mayor Zandlle Gumede was culled from the list because she is facing corruption charges.
“The issue around the PR list is not resolved. The PEC needs to meet with the RTT and resolve this, but it appears that they already sided with the decisions,” Mchunu said, adding that legal action was likely from the affected branches.
“We [are] waiting for the closing date on Saturday. If they are not willing to assist us, we are going the legal route,” he said.
In North West, more than 50 branches from the Ngaka Modiri Molema region protested outside the ANC regional office, demanding to be addressed by the interim provincial committee over candidate choices.
The branches claimed that candidate nominees placed on the list by the regional task team included people who had not attended the branch and community meetings held to elect representatives.
Branches from the Bojanala region in North West have also written to the IEC and Luthuli House demanding that the process be reviewed — including an audit of the branch nomination packages — failing which they will go to court.
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