The African National Congress (ANC) has won its Constitutional Court battle to have 181 candidates included on the ballot for South Africa’s local government elections on 4 November 2026.
In a ruling delivered on Thursday, 15 October, the Constitutional Court ordered the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to take the necessary steps to include the party’s candidate lists and nominations on the ballot. The court granted the ANC leave to appeal and set aside the Electoral Court’s earlier decision against the party.
The dispute centred on the exclusion of ANC candidates across six municipalities after the party failed to complete the final submission process on the IEC’s online candidate nomination system before the deadline.
The affected municipalities are 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. (Inside Politic)
Dispute over the final submission button
The ANC argued that it had uploaded the candidates’ information and supporting documents and paid the required deposits before the deadline of 28 August. However, the party did not complete the final step by clicking the system’s “Submit as Final” button.
The IEC maintained that uploading the information alone did not amount to a valid submission and that the party had failed to comply with the nomination requirements.
The Electoral Court previously ruled in favour of the IEC, leaving the 181 candidates excluded from the election. The ANC subsequently approached the Constitutional Court to challenge that decision.
Thursday’s ruling overturns that outcome and directs the IEC to take the necessary steps to include the affected ANC candidates in the election process.
The decision comes as preparations continue for the local government elections scheduled for 4 November, with the IEC having previously warned that a ruling in the ANC’s favour could require some ballot papers to be reprinted.
