The ANC wants to register to contest in all municipal councils in the country, after the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) turned down some of their candidates for filing their applications late.
ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte, during a media briefing on Thursday, said the ruling party will, on Friday, file an urgent application in the Electoral Court, asking it to force the IEC to accept those candidates who were excluded, after her party “experienced glitches” with the electoral body’s online system.
According to Duarte – if their intended application before the Electoral Court fails – a total of between 29 and 30, of the 257 municipalities, will not have an ANC candidate.
“Some of our candidates were rejected by the online system. Some of them were found not to have properly registered in the ward in which they stood as candidates for the upcoming local government elections.
“Most of them are young people, who could have been affected by the fact that there was no voter registration to register them as first-time voters,” Duarte said.
She said adding to their troubles was that the IEC system kept on freezing, which resulted in some of their candidates not being able to meet the 9pm IEC deadline for registration.
Duarte was, however, quick to reject EFF’s leader Julius Malema’s remarks on Wednesday, when he accused the IEC of having extended the registration deadline from 5pm to 9pm, to specifically allow for the ANC to register its candidates.
She also reacted to ongoing disputes about the manipulation of candidates lists, which led to a number of her party branches marching to Luthuli House and various provincial headquarters, to express their dismay at how the ANC handled the nomination of candidates.
According to Duarte, the ANC’s electoral body – under former president Kgalema Motlanthe – is due to sit on Friday to resolve some of their disputes brought to their attention.
Earlier, the IEC revealed on Tuesday that only two political parties have registered to contest for 10 285 municipal council seats in 257 municipalities, but declined to reveal their names.
The DA and EFF have confirmed that they are contesting all municipal council seats.
Political Bureau