The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes and welcomes the decision of the Electoral Court to dismiss the African National Congress’s (ANC) application challenging the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of South Africa’s refusal to accommodate its late submission of candidates for the 4 November 2026 Local Government Elections. The ruling is a victory for electoral integrity, for the rule of law, and for every party and every voter who respected the deadlines set out by the IEC.

On 28 August 2026, at 5pm, the statutory deadline closed for political parties to submit their ward candidate nominations and party lists through the IEC’s Online Candidate Nomination System. Every party contesting the November elections knew this deadline months in advance, it was not sprung on anyone.

The ANC failed to complete its submissions for six municipalities affecting 181 of its candidates. Rather than accept responsibility for this failure, the ANC claimed that “technical glitches” on the IEC’s system prevented its administrators from clicking the final “submit” button, and approached the Electoral Court demanding that its incomplete submissions be recognised as validly made.

The IEC’s response exposed this excuse for what it was. The Commission’s own server logs showed zero downtime on the nomination platform before the deadline, and demonstrated that ANC officials were actively uploading candidate information for other municipalities right up until 5pm, proof that the system was fully operational the entire time. Tellingly, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula was later forced to admit that the party’s own list had contained inaccurately captured identity numbers. The “glitch” the ANC blamed on the IEC was, in truth, the ANC’s own administrative failure to manage a process it had known about for months. This episode is not an isolated embarrassment. It is a mirror held up to the ANC’s broader record of governance failure. A party that cannot manage the simple, well- publicised administrative task of submitting a candidate list on a deadline it agreed to months in advance is the same party that has run municipalities into insolvency, allowed R45.6 billion to be wasted in a single financial year according to the Auditor- General, and left millions of South Africans without reliable water, electricity, or sanitation.

The pattern is consistent: failure first, blame second. When Eskom collapsed under load shedding, the ANC blamed sabotage and weather. When municipalities failed to pay creditors, water boards, and municipal workers, the ANC blamed “capacity constraints.” Now, when its own party machinery cannot complete an online form before a deadline, the ANC blames the IEC.

South Africans should read this ruling for what it is: further confirmation that the ANC is not fit to be trusted with the basic administrative competence required to run local government, let alone the country. A party that cannot organise its own candidate lists has no credibility standing before communities in asking for their votes, while blaming everyone but itself for its own failures.

The EFF calls on the Electoral Commission to continue applying the law without fear or favour, to every party equally, and calls on voters to remember this episode as one more data point in a long, unbroken record of ANC incompetence.