Andile Lungisa challenges removal from ANC candidate list in court - IOL

ANC NEC member Andile Lungisa has approached the Gauteng High Court over his exclusion from the party’s candidate list.

ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member Andile Lungisa has launched an urgent court challenge against ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula over his exclusion from the party’s candidate list for the November 4 Local Government Elections.

According to SABC News, Lungisa has approached the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, accusing Mbalula of personally ordering that his name be removed from the ANC’s Nelson Mandela Bay candidate list despite his candidacy having gone through the party’s internal processes.

Lungisa, who had been shortlisted as one of the ANC’s mayoral candidates for Nelson Mandela Bay, wants the court to declare his exclusion unlawful and compel the party to reinstate him on its proportional representation (PR) candidate list.

Court papers show that Lungisa claims his candidacy had been endorsed through ANC structures before his name was removed ahead of the submission of the final list to the Electoral Commission of South Africa.

Lungisa alleges Mbalula convened a meeting in Johannesburg and instructed officials to remove his name from the list.

“Mr Mbalula convened the meeting envisaged in clause 9.6.5 at a hotel in Johannesburg and instructed the officials to remove my name,” Lungisa states in his court papers.

He further alleges that Mbalula believed his candidacy would cause unspecified “problems” for the secretary-general.

Lungisa argues that the ANC's candidate-selection rules do not give Mbalula unilateral authority to remove a candidate after the list has been approved.

According to the court papers, changes to a finalised candidate list can only be made on “very serious grounds” and require the agreement of 80% of the ANC’s extended NEC.

Lungisa maintains that his name was still on the candidate list when the NEC met around August 27 to finalise candidates.

“But this did not happen,” he says in the papers, referring to the prescribed process for altering the list.

He claims several ANC members who were present when Mbalula allegedly ordered his removal are prepared to support his version under oath if the Secretary-General disputes the allegation.

Lungisa's legal action comes as the ANC faces a wider battle over its candidate lists ahead of the local government elections.

IOL previously reported that the ANC approached the Electoral Court after the IEC refused to process candidate information affecting 181 ANC candidates across six municipalities.

Mbalula told the media that 130 PR candidates and 51 ward candidates were affected. The ANC maintains that their information had been captured on the IEC's electronic system before the August 28 deadline but had not been successfully submitted as final.

“We asked to add no name. We asked to change no list. We asked for no late nomination and no late extension of any deadline,” Mbalula said.

He argued that the central question before the Electoral Court was whether information uploaded to the IEC system before the deadline could legally be regarded as having been submitted.

The IEC has rejected claims that technical problems with its system prevented parties from completing their submissions. The ANC's Electoral Court matter is expected to be heard on September 15.

Lungisa was not the only prominent ANC figure affected by candidate-list problems.

ANC veteran Reverend Frank Chikane, who was being considered for Johannesburg's mayoral position, and Nocawe Mafu, a mayoral contender in Buffalo City, were also reported to have been omitted from candidate lists.

Mbalula has previously acknowledged that some mayoral candidates were left off the lists because of what he described as an “error”, saying the party intended to resolve the problem.

“You also reported about the issue of mayoral candidates who are not on the list; that is an error and it will be resolved because they belong [on] the PR [proportional representation] list,” Mbalula said earlier this week.

“There’s no crisis about that, that so-and-so is not included and all of that, in terms of the mayoral candidates.”

Lungisa's court challenge, however, alleges that his exclusion was not simply an administrative mistake but followed a direct instruction from the ANC secretary-general.

The ANC and Mbalula are expected to respond to the allegations contained in Lungisa's application.