BREAKING | DA loses court battle over rival parties’ one-name election lists - IOL

The DA’s bid to stop four political parties from submitting one-name proportional representation lists has been dismissed, after it argued that the practice allowed them to conceal candidates from voters and add names after the election.

The Electoral Court has dismissed the DA’s application challenging one-name proportional representation lists submitted by ActionSA, the EFF, the MK Party and GOOD, which the party claimed were designed to hide candidates from voters ahead of the November 4 elections.

The judgment was delivered in Bloemfontein on Friday by Acting Judge Mangcu-Lockwood. The case was heard on October 13.

The DA had approached the court last month, accusing the four parties of deliberately submitting proportional representation (PR) candidate lists containing only one name in municipalities where they are contesting the elections.

The party argued that the practice was an attempt to conceal candidates from voters before the elections and allow the parties to add names to their lists after the votes had been counted.

In its judgment, the court dismissed the DA’s application for an order declaring the four parties’ candidate lists unlawful and submitted in bad faith.

The DA had also asked the court to find that the lists violated sections of the Constitution, the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act and the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act.

It further sought a review of the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) decision, taken on September 16, to publish the party lists, as well as related relief.

However, the court postponed indefinitely the DA’s application to have the IEC’s decision declared unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid, as well as its conditional constitutional challenge.

The court made no order as to costs.

The DA’s application followed its objections to the four parties submitting PR lists with only one candidate, despite fielding thousands of ward candidates across the country.

DA federal council chairperson Ashor Sarupen previously said the party believed the practice was designed to conceal candidates from voters.

“The DA’s papers challenge the deliberate submission of proportional representation lists with only one name on them, by ActionSA, the EFF, MK and GOOD ahead of the 2026 Local Government Elections, a decision we view as deliberately concealing their candidates from voters,” Sarupen said.

He argued that the law allowing parties to submit additional names after an election was intended to address unexpected increases in electoral support, rather than to be used as a campaign strategy.

“Parties are required to present voters with the names of their candidates before voters go into a voting booth to choose their political parties, not after the votes have been counted,” he said.

Sarupen said the DA believed voters had a right to know who would represent them before casting their ballots.

Sarupen said the EFF was contesting almost every ward in the country, with thousands of individual ward candidates, while submitting only one PR candidate in each municipality.

He also said ActionSA had nominated more than 2,000 ward candidates while submitting one-person PR lists in virtually every municipality it was contesting.

In Johannesburg, where ActionSA currently has dozens of PR councillors, the party had submitted only one PR candidate, according to Sarupen.

He said the MK Party had also fielded candidates in thousands of wards while submitting one-name PR lists, while GOOD had followed the same approach in municipalities where it already held multiple PR seats.

“The scale and uniformity of this practice is precisely why the DA has approached the Electoral Court,” Sarupen said.

He further claimed that ActionSA had publicly acknowledged that its approach was deliberate, saying it intended to supplement its list after determining how many seats it had won.

Sarupen argued that the practice could allow parties to use additional PR seats to reward members who had worked on their election campaigns.

“The question now before the Electoral Court is whether the topping-up of lists after seat calculations can deliberately be used as an electoral strategy to avoid identifying candidates before voters get to vote,” he said.

The DA also argued that the issue was particularly important after the ANC was barred from contesting in several municipalities for failing to submit its candidate lists by the deadline.