Electoral Court throws out DA bid to block single-name party lists - News24

The Electoral Court dismissed the DA’s application to declare the actions of political parties that submitted only one name on their proportional representation (PR) electoral lists to be in bad faith, but it postponed the DA’s application to have this practice declared unconstitutional.

The upshot is that ActionSA, the EFF, the MK Party and GOOD’s party lists stand for Wednesday’s election and that they can supplement them thereafter.

Each of the four parties submitted PR candidate lists with only a single name for the 2026 local government elections across dozens or hundreds of municipalities.

Item 17 of the schedule to the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act allows the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to ask a party to supplement its PR list after an election if it wins more seats than it has named candidates.

The DA argued that the four parties were using this supplementation mechanism not as a safety net for unexpected results, but as a deliberate, planned strategy to keep their councillor candidates hidden from voters until after ballots are counted.

READ | DA wants parties to name their PR councillors upfront. The court has questions

The party argued that the other parties were using Item 17 for what was not its intended purpose, and the practice was therefore illegal, and asked the court for “appropriate relief”.

The matter was heard on 13 October, and the court handed down judgment on Friday, finding that the law as it stands permits single-name PR lists and post-election supplementation under Item 17. The practice was not fraudulent, in bad faith, unconstitutional or unlawful.

Judge Nobahle Mangcu-Lockwood, with Judge Lebogang Modiba and Professor Moses Phooko concurring, ruled that “the right to know when voting for candidates on PR party lists is informed and constrained by, firstly, the PR system which highlights party representativity” and what national legislation requires.

The court found no reason to overturn the IEC’s decision to certify the lists.

The DA argued that if the court found that the current legislation permits single-name lists and post-election topping-up, as it did, then the legislation itself is constitutionally invalid for failing to prevent such a situation.

This is the part of the DA’s application that the court postponed indefinitely.

“The effect of the relief sought under this heading would have a profound impact on the design of the electoral system for the municipal councils. A matter of such fundamental significance needs careful handling, not a rushed jolt,” wrote Mangcu-Lockwood.

“The matter has been brought some weeks before voting day, after the date for nominations had closed and party lists were certified. The disruption to the elections if such an order were granted at this point is unthinkable.”

“This is especially so when all the opposing parties point to the fact that the DA has itself previously indulged in the same practice that it now complains about, including in the current elections.”

DA federal council chairperson Ashor Sarupen said the ruling “has serious implications for voters’ rights to know who they are electing”.

“The consequence of the judgement exposes a serious gap in our electoral law, in which the judiciary has held that voters have a constitutional right to know (for example, in party political funding), except, now, for the actual persons who will enter public office as a consequence of their votes,” he said in a statement.

“Voters are entitled to know who is funding a party. They are equally entitled to know who that party may put in office. One principle cannot be upheld while the other is ignored.”

Noting that the court postponed their constitutional challenge without deciding it, Sarupen said: “The DA will now argue the constitutional challenge before the Electoral Court, where we hope the same standard that was applied to party political funding, namely that voters have a right to know, applied equally to the very persons they will be electing on party lists.”

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont welcomed the ruling.

“It was clear from its genesis that this case was stillborn, comically hypocritical and littered with anti-democratic tendencies,” he said in a statement.

He said it was hypocritical, because the DA has used single-person PR lists itself, and anti-democratic, because “granting the DA’s prayers would have disenfranchised 25% of the South African electorate from being represented in councils”.

“The benefit to the DA, should its prayers be allowed, was clear and shows that this case was never truly about the public interest. It would have effectively nullified the votes of South Africans the DA knew it could not win over, and councils would have elected mayors into office without the voices of South Africans who braved the lines to cast their ballots.”

Beaumont said the case showed that the DA “has gone into retreat”.

GOOD secretary-general Brett Herron also welcomed the ruling.

“The DA claimed we had set out to subvert the law and keep voters in the dark, but the court found no factual basis for these claims,” he said in a statement.

“The DA ran to court weeks before voting day, after nominations had closed and lists were certified, to change the rules of an election it is contesting. The court described the disruption that the relief would cause as ‘unthinkable’ and cautioned that ‘changing the rules in the middle of the game’ may have unfair consequences,” Herron said.

“This case was never about protecting voters. It was an attempt to brand four opposition parties as fraudsters in the final days of a campaign. It failed on every count the court decided.”

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