CENTURION, Wednesday 2 September 2026 — The Electoral Commission says 2,274 prospective candidates linked to 45 political parties will not contest the 2026 local government elections after their details were captured on its online nomination system but were not formally submitted before the statutory deadline.
The figure provides the clearest indication yet of the scale of incomplete candidate submissions ahead of the 4 November municipal elections and materially expands on the dispute already reported over missing ANC candidates.
Of the affected prospective candidates, 1,794 were intended for ward contests and 480 for proportional-representation lists, IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya said during the commission’s candidate-nomination briefing on Wednesday.
The candidates were entered into the Online Candidate Nomination System but had not reached the final submission stage when nominations closed at 17:00 on Friday, 28 August.
“The Commission’s position is that, in practical terms, these potential candidates have not been submitted to the Commission and therefore are not in contention for this election,” Moepya said.
The commission has not publicly identified all 45 affected parties or provided a municipality-by-municipality breakdown of the 2,274 prospective candidates.
The ANC has separately acknowledged incomplete submissions affecting some of its candidate lists, particularly in the Eastern Cape, and has attributed its difficulties to technical problems with the IEC’s online system.
The IEC has rejected suggestions that its nomination platform prevented parties from completing their submissions and has said it will not reopen nominations for the ANC or any other contestant.
IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said the ANC had asked the commission to confirm whether candidates had not been submitted in certain municipalities.
“The commission has never entertained any possibility to open the system for any one party,” Mamabolo said, adding that the position had been communicated to parties through the national party liaison committee.
The exclusion of 1,794 prospective ward candidates could have direct electoral consequences if significant numbers are concentrated in particular municipalities or political parties.
Unlike the broader increase in nominations announced on Wednesday, the incomplete submissions could determine whether affected parties are able to field candidates in individual wards.
The IEC received 142,072 successfully submitted nominations for 10,526 council seats, up about 43% from the approximately 99,000 nominations recorded for the 2021 municipal elections.
Competition is particularly extensive in the major metropolitan municipalities.
Johannesburg has 80 parties contesting proportional-representation seats, followed by Tshwane with 72, eThekwini with 70, Ekurhuleni with 69 and Cape Town with 55.
Nelson Mandela Bay has 38 parties contesting its PR election.
The IEC is now checking submitted nominations for compliance with electoral legislation, including candidate acceptance forms, deposits and supporting voter information required from independent candidates.
Where permitted by the election timetable, the commission can request outstanding supporting documentation from candidates whose nominations were actually submitted. That process is distinct from allowing parties to submit candidates who missed the nomination deadline.
The final certified candidate lists are scheduled for publication on 16 September.
That publication — and any further disclosure of which parties and municipalities account for the 2,274 unsuccessful submissions — will show whether the missed deadline materially alters individual ward contests or parties’ prospects of winning control of councils.
