South Africa’s Electoral Commission extends court ruling to 32 parties — TimesLIVE
South Africa’s Electoral Commission has extended the effect of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the nomination of African National Congress (ANC) candidates to 32 other political parties. Commission chair Mosotho Moepya said it would be unfair to exclude parties that found themselves in a similar situation, TimesLIVE reports.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court ordered the commission to include 181 ANC candidates on the lists for local elections on November 4. The ruling concerns 51 ward candidates and 130 candidates under the proportional representation system in six municipalities.
Conditions for parties
According to Moepya, 32 parties nominated candidates who met the requirements and paid electoral deposits, but did not submit final candidate lists by the established deadline. They planned to participate in elections in 121 local municipalities across the country.
The commission decided to consider that these parties had lawfully submitted nominations, citing the need to ensure free and fair elections and equal treatment of participants. At the same time, 13 other parties did not meet the requirements for lawful nomination of candidates. The unmet conditions included payment of an electoral deposit and registration on the voters’ rolls of the municipalities where the parties wanted to contest.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Printing ballots
The extension of the court ruling covers 107 municipalities. To accommodate the additional candidates, 33 million ballots need to be produced: 27 million have already been printed, while another 6.6 million still had to be printed at the time of the commission’s statement.
The commission suspended ballot printing for the six municipalities covered by the ANC’s court application until the Constitutional Court made its decision. According to Moepya, there were no ballot costs for these six municipalities.
The Electoral Commission will contact the 32 parties to confirm their intention to participate in the elections. They will be allowed to complete the candidate nomination procedures and, if necessary, add or replace names on several lists. The commission does not yet expect the voting day to be postponed, although it acknowledged that logistical preparations had become significantly more complicated.
