‘The DA has no quarrel with the law’: ANC opposes DA application to intervene in candidate case - IOL

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula says the party will oppose the DA’s bid to intervene in its Electoral Court challenge over disputed candidate nominations ahead of November’s local government elections.

The ANC says it will oppose the Democratic Alliance’s application to intervene in its Electoral Court case over the party’s disputed candidate nominations for the November 4 local government elections.

ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said the party had instructed its legal representatives to oppose the DA’s application, arguing that the electoral body was already defending the decision being challenged and that the DA was not a party to that decision.

This comes after the DA approached the Electoral Court seeking to intervene in the ANC’s application concerning the lodgement of its candidates in six municipalities.

The ANC said the DA’s application misrepresented what it was asking the court to do, and who would be affected by the relief it was seeking.

ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the DA had no legal interest that the court needed to protect because the central question was whether the ANC’s candidate lists had been submitted before the deadline under the Municipal Electoral Act.

“The DA has no quarrel with the Commission and no quarrel with the law,” Mbalula said.

“Its quarrel is with the voters of six municipalities who might choose somebody other than the DA.”

Mbalula said the ANC’s application would not remove any DA candidate from the ballot.

“Nothing the ANC asks for takes a single DA candidate off any ballot.''

The ANC said 2,274 candidates from 45 parties were affected by the issue, according to the IEC’s own count, with 44 of those parties not being the ANC.

It argued that the DA’s claim that the final electronic submission step was a process all parties clearly understood and successfully followed was contradicted by the Commission’s figures.

The ANC said it was not asking for the nomination process to be reopened or for special treatment.

Instead, it wants candidates whose details were on the IEC’s system before 5pm on August 28 to be counted, with the same approach applied to all 45 affected parties.

“The ANC wants no favours. Whatever the Court grants, we have asked that it apply to every affected party on the same terms,” Mbalula said.

The party said a party that had complied with the rules would not be prejudiced if another party’s timeously lodged candidates were counted.

It said that, should the court allow the DA to intervene, it would ask that its participation be confined to argument and that it cause no delay to the IEC’s timetable.

The ANC also raised concerns about the possible impact of the court process on the election timetable.

The IEC is scheduled to compile the final candidate list on September 16, followed by the ballot paper draw on September 23.

The ANC said further court proceedings could put those dates at risk, affecting candidates from the 45 parties and voters in the municipalities concerned.

The party also pointed to the IEC’s own processes for correcting nomination defects.

It said notices concerning missing identity documents and acceptance forms were sent to parties on September 4, giving them until September 7 to respond, while substitution of candidates appearing on more than one list is permitted until September 11.

The ANC also referred to the 2021 local government elections, when the IEC amended the election timetable and reopened candidate nominations when circumstances required it.

“Where a systemic difficulty arises on the Commission’s own system, affecting 45 parties through a single channel, the practice of this democracy has been to protect participation, not to defeat it,” it said.

The ANC said its case should be considered against the constitutional right to vote and stand for public office.

It argued that electoral law should promote participation rather than narrow the choices available to voters.

“‘Deadlines are deadlines’ is not an answer to that. The ANC agrees that deadlines bind every party equally.

“The question before the Court is what was submitted before the deadline, and that question belongs to the Court, to the Commission and to the parties whose candidates are affected, not to a party that stands to profit from their exclusion.”

The ANC said the DA’s intervention was also taking place against the backdrop of the two parties’ political relationship.

Although the ANC and DA sit together in the Government of National Unity, the ANC said they remain principal opponents at local government level.

“The ANC will meet it as such in court,” the party said.

Mbalula said the ANC had chosen to resolve the dispute through the courts and would abide by the outcome.

“A vote is won on the ballot and it is lost on the ballot,” he said.

“It must not be lost at a confirmation step on a website, and it must not be lost because a rival party found it convenient. The Court will decide, and the ANC will abide by what the court decides.”

The ANC said it had lodged 9,128 candidates, of whom 8,947 were accepted by the IEC at lodgement.

Those candidates covered 97% of wards nationally, while its proportional representation lists covered 90% of those seats.