JOHANNESBURG, Friday 4 September 2026 — The Electoral Court has ruled that the Electoral Commission has no power to excuse a political party for missing the statutory deadline to submit ward candidates, rejecting an attempt by the recently registered United Democratic Front Party to enter late candidates in the 4 November local government elections.
The court on Friday released reasons for an order it made on 28 August dismissing the UDF Party’s urgent application, in which the party sought permission to participate in ward contests despite not submitting its nominations by the deadline.
The ruling is significant beyond the UDF Party because disputes over incomplete candidate submissions have become a major issue in the 2026 municipal election, including the ANC’s separate dispute with the IEC over approximately 181 prospective candidates.
Judge Leicester Adams said the Municipal Electoral Act provides limited mechanisms for candidate substitutions after nominations close but does not allow a candidate to be nominated for the first time after the statutory deadline.
“The simple point is this. Beyond these provisions, the Electoral Commission has no power to condone non-compliance with a statutory deadline,” Adams said in the judgment, according to TimesLIVE.
The UDF Party was registered by the IEC on 24 August, four days before nominations closed at 17:00 on 28 August.
It argued that the short period between registration and the nomination deadline did not give it sufficient time to identify candidates, obtain their consent and prepare the required documentation.
After the IEC declined to extend the deadline, the party approached the Electoral Court urgently.
The party also proposed an alternative arrangement under which it would be permitted to nominate temporary or “placeholder” candidates and replace them before later deadlines contained in the election timetable.
The IEC opposed both forms of relief.
It argued that section 11(2)(a) of the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act allows the commission to amend the election timetable generally where necessary to ensure a free and fair election, but does not allow it to exempt an individual political party from a deadline that continues to apply to other contestants.
Adams agreed.
He found that provisions permitting candidate substitutions apply only to nominations that were validly submitted before the deadline.
The legislation provides no mechanism allowing a new nomination to be lodged afterwards, he said.
The court also rejected the UDF Party’s argument that its late registration created circumstances beyond its control.
Adams said the party could have prepared prospective candidates while its registration application was being processed because registration was required for submitting nominations, but not for recruiting candidates and preparing their documentation.
The judge noted that the party began publicly calling for candidates on about 23 August, one day before the IEC approved its registration.
He described the resulting difficulty as self-created and said a reasonable political party planning to contest the elections could have prepared for nominations alongside the registration process.
The Electoral Court dismissed the application without making a costs order.
The ruling comes as the IEC enforces the same 28 August nomination deadline across the election.
Official IEC guidance states that political parties may submit candidates electronically through its Online Candidate Nomination System or manually at the commission’s relevant municipal offices, but the submissions must be completed before the deadline contained in the election timetable.
The commission disclosed this week that 2,274 prospective candidates linked to 45 political parties were captured on its online system but had not been formally submitted before nominations closed.
Those entries comprise 1,794 potential ward candidates and 480 potential proportional-representation candidates.
The IEC has said those candidates are not currently in contention for the election.
The UDF ruling will consequently attract particular attention because the ANC is considering its own approach to the Electoral Court over incomplete nominations.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Ekurhuleni on Friday that the ANC was examining whether to approach the specialist court over approximately 181 affected ward and proportional-representation candidates.
The two cases are not identical.
The UDF Party sought an extension or permission to submit nominations after acknowledging that its candidates had not been lodged before the deadline.
The ANC maintains that its candidate information had already been captured on the IEC system and alleges that technical problems prevented the submissions from being completed.
The IEC disputes the ANC’s technical-failure claim.
The UDF ruling therefore does not automatically determine the outcome of any future ANC litigation, particularly if the ANC advances materially different factual or legal grounds.
It does, however, provide a clear Electoral Court interpretation that the IEC itself cannot simply condone a missed statutory candidate-nomination deadline for an individual political party.
That could narrow the type of relief available to parties seeking to restore candidates who were not formally submitted by 17:00 on 28 August.
The next major electoral deadline is 16 September, when the IEC is scheduled to publish the final certified candidate lists.
Any significant candidate-list litigation is therefore likely to unfold against an increasingly compressed timetable before ballots are finalised for the 4 November election.
