TEMBISA, Friday 4 September 2026 — ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa says the party is considering approaching the Electoral Court over failed candidate submissions affecting about 181 prospective councillors, escalating its dispute with the Electoral Commission two months before South Africa’s local government elections.
Ramaphosa disclosed the possible legal challenge while campaigning in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, on Friday, after the IEC maintained that candidates whose nominations were not formally submitted by the 28 August deadline cannot be added to the ballot.
SABC News reported that approximately 181 ANC ward and proportional-representation candidates are affected.
“Well, there are processes that are now being looked at to see whether the approach to the IEC will be the best one, or the approach to the entity or institution” mandated to resolve electoral disputes, Ramaphosa said.
He specifically identified the Electoral Court as an institution capable of resolving the dispute.
The comments materially change the status of a disagreement that had until now centred mainly on administrative exchanges between the ANC and IEC.
The ANC says portions of its candidate information had been captured on the IEC’s Online Candidate Nomination System before the deadline but could not be finally submitted because of technical problems.
The IEC disputes that explanation.
It said this week that its system remained operational and that it received no report establishing a system failure which prevented political parties from completing their nominations.
The commission has also rejected suggestions that it is negotiating with the ANC over reopening candidate submissions.
It told EWN that it would not permit any party, including the ANC, to add candidates after the statutory deadline.
The dispute has potentially significant consequences because the affected ANC nominations are spread across more than one province.
Mzansi Political Safari previously reported that candidate problems include municipalities in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State, with Mangaung’s proportional-representation slate believed to be among those affected. The precise distribution of the 181 candidates has not yet been officially published by the IEC.
That breakdown will determine the scale of the electoral risk.
A missing ward candidate could leave the ANC without a contestant in that individual race, while problems involving an entire proportional-representation list could affect the number of council seats available to the party even where it performs strongly at the polls.
The dispute is particularly important in competitive municipalities where a small number of seats could determine whether any party can form an administration after 4 November.
The IEC has said 2,274 prospective candidates from 45 parties were captured on its system without being formally submitted by the deadline.
Those entries are not regarded as valid nominations.
The commission has therefore framed the issue as one of compliance with the election timetable rather than a technical exclusion of otherwise valid candidates.
The ANC’s argument is different.
It maintains that the relevant candidate information was already on the IEC system and says its complaint should not be treated as an attempt to nominate new candidates after nominations had closed.
That legal distinction is likely to become central if the party files proceedings in the Electoral Court.
The litigation could require the court to determine whether the disputed entries legally constituted incomplete nominations and whether any technical circumstances justify relief after the statutory cut-off.
No court application had been publicly filed by Friday afternoon.
Ramaphosa’s comments indicate, however, that litigation has moved from a hypothetical possibility to an option being actively considered by the governing party.
Timing will be important.
The IEC is currently conducting its statutory candidate-compliance process and plans to publish the final certified candidate lists on 16 September.
If the ANC approaches the Electoral Court, it is likely to seek a determination sufficiently early to avoid uncertainty over affected ballots and candidate lists.
Until then, the IEC’s position remains that the missed nominations are excluded.
