BOKSBURG, Thursday 27 August 2026 — The ANC has convened a second special National Executive Committee meeting in less than 48 hours as it races to finalise more than 10,000 municipal candidates before Friday’s Electoral Commission deadline, with unresolved disputes in the Eastern Cape adding pressure to the process.
The meeting at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre was called specifically to consider outstanding matters in the party’s candidate-list process ahead of the 4 November local government elections.
The ANC held an earlier special NEC meeting on Tuesday, but that sitting extended into Wednesday morning without completing all of the candidate-list work.
By Thursday, the party was still ratifying provincial lists and working through disputes as the 17:00 Friday, 28 August nomination deadline approached.
ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu said the party plans to field more than 10,000 candidates, including 4,488 ward candidates and about 6,000 proportional-representation candidates.
She said several provincial lists had already been loaded onto the IEC system and that the party hoped to have the process ready for secretary-general Fikile Mbalula to complete the final submission.
The NEC is required under the ANC’s own candidate-selection rules to approve and ratify the final lists.
Those rules provide that provincial lists must pass through the Electoral Committee before being submitted to the extended NEC, with strict thresholds applying to late changes.
A candidate may generally only be removed at that stage if disqualified during vetting or if 90% of extended NEC delegates support the removal.
The compressed timetable comes as the ANC continues dealing with multiple disputes arising from its candidate-selection process.
The Eastern Cape remains the most prominent pressure point.
About 180 branch disputes were lodged during the process, with roughly 50 reportedly still unresolved this week, particularly in the Chris Hani, Alfred Nzo, OR Tambo, Amathole and Dr WB Rubusana regions.
Dr WB Rubusana covers Buffalo City, one of South Africa’s eight metropolitan municipalities.
ANC members there have threatened legal action over allegations that branch nomination procedures were not followed and that some candidates supported by local structures were removed from lists.
Those allegations remain disputed and have not resulted in a court finding that the current candidate lists were improperly compiled.
The party is also dealing with the consequences of an Eastern Cape High Court judgment concerning its provincial leadership structures.
Bhengu said the ANC had reinstated the provincial executive committee to continue working on the candidate process while the party pursued an appeal concerning the provincial task team.
The ANC is additionally managing disputes over its new qualification requirements.
Electoral Committee chairperson Kgalema Motlanthe rejected provincial requests to waive the party’s matric requirement for councillor candidates.
Candidates without matric were instead given a conditional route requiring them to sign undertakings to obtain a matric or equivalent NQF Level 4 qualification within 12 months if elected.
The party’s internal rules also impose qualification and experience requirements on mayoral, speaker and chief-whip candidates.
The approved guidelines state that candidates for those positions should hold a tertiary qualification and have at least three years’ experience as an MP, MPL or councillor, alongside other eligibility requirements.
The ANC’s mayoral selection remains a separate unresolved part of its election preparations.
The party presented shortlists for several municipalities at the weekend rather than announcing final mayoral choices and has since said the successful candidates will be publicly revealed in September.
That means councillor lists must be finalised for IEC purposes while the party continues its internal process of deciding who it intends to put forward for mayor in major municipalities.
The timing is especially important in the metros, where the ANC is attempting to recover ground after losing outright control of several councils and where candidate disputes could affect local campaign organisation.
The ANC said on Thursday that it remained confident every province would complete its submissions before the IEC deadline.
The Electoral Commission has warned political parties and independent candidates that late submissions will not be accepted, making Friday afternoon a hard cut-off for the candidate-registration process.
The significance of Thursday’s second NEC meeting therefore extends beyond routine internal administration.
It is the party’s final opportunity at national leadership level to settle lists involving thousands of candidates, deal with outstanding objections and ensure that contested municipal structures do not prevent registrations in politically important councils.
The immediate test will come on Friday, when the ANC must complete its nationwide submission before nominations close at 17:00.
