- The ANC has filed an urgent Constitutional Court application.
- It wants its uploaded candidate lists recognised as legally submitted before the deadline.
- The Electoral Court ruled that clicking the submit as final button is legally required.
The ANC has taken its candidate nomination battle to the Constitutional Court after losing a crucial Electoral Court challenge over the 2026 local government elections.
Court papers filed by ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula show the party lodged an urgent application on 22 September 2026, asking the Constitutional Court to overturn the Electoral Court’s judgment and reinstate its candidates in six municipalities.
The dispute centres on the Electoral Commission’s Online Candidate Nomination System (OCNS), the electronic platform political parties use to capture candidate information, upload supporting documents and submit party and ward candidate lists for local government elections.
How the nomination dispute began
Before the 28 August 2026 deadline, the ANC completed its electronic nomination forms, uploaded all required supporting documents and paid the prescribed deposits for the affected municipalities. However, the party did not click the submit as final button before the statutory 5pm deadline.
The Electoral Commission rejected the affected nominations, arguing that candidate lists remained provisional until the final submission step had been completed.
The ANC maintained that completing the forms, uploading the documents and paying the deposits amounted to lawful submission under the Municipal Electoral Act. It asked the Electoral Court to declare its nominations valid and order the Commission to include its candidates on the certified ballot lists.
Electoral Court dismissed the ANC appeal
Judge M Modiba, with Acting Judge A Mangcu-Lockwood and Professor P Phooko concurring, dismissed the ANC’s appeal and ruled that the final submission button forms part of the prescribed legal process for electronic nominations.
The court found that the OCNS clearly distinguishes between information that has been saved and nominations that have been officially submitted. Judge Modiba said, “The OCNS is not merely a repository for data.”
The judgment held that candidate lists remain capable of being amended, replaced or withdrawn until the final submission step is completed, making the button the point at which a political party formally lodges its definitive list of candidates.
The judges also accepted the Electoral Commission’s explanation that clicking submit as final communicates a party’s “final and unequivocal decision” to submit its nominations.
Technical claim abandoned
The ANC initially alleged that technical problems prevented it from completing the nomination process, claiming it had been logged out of the system shortly before the deadline.
The Electoral Commission produced system evidence showing the platform remained operational throughout the nomination period and that other political parties, including the ANC in other municipalities, completed their submissions.
The court noted that the ANC later abandoned its system malfunction argument and instead relied mainly on a legal interpretation of the nomination requirements.
DA joined the proceedings
The DA was granted leave to intervene after arguing that the outcome would directly affect electoral contests in the six municipalities where it is also fielding candidates. The Electoral Court agreed that the DA had a direct and substantial legal interest in the matter.
A separate intervention application by the African Transformation Movement was dismissed because it was filed late without an application for condonation.
Constitutional Court is now asked to decide
In its urgent application, the ANC asks the Constitutional Court to set aside the Electoral Court order and declare that the candidate lists uploaded onto the OCNS were legally submitted before the nomination deadline.
The outcome will determine whether the ANC’s affected candidates can be restored to the ballot ahead of the 4 November 2026 local government elections.
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