CAPE TOWN, Monday 7 September 2026 — An Electoral Laws Amendment Bill before Parliament would require political parties without elected representation to renew their registration every year, create a firm cut-off for parties seeking to contest elections and expand the Electoral Court as South Africa prepares for the 4 November local government elections.
The Electoral Laws Amendment Bill [B24-2026], introduced by the Minister of Home Affairs, proposes amendments to the Electoral Commission Act, Electoral Act and Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act. Parliament lists the Bill as having been introduced in the National Assembly on 28 August, with a revised version dated 3 September.
Its most significant provisions concern the registration and continued existence of political parties.
Under the proposal, an unrepresented political party that fails to renew its registration annually would have to be deregistered.
The requirement is aimed principally at parties that exist on the Electoral Commission’s register but hold no seats in the National Assembly, provincial legislatures or municipal councils.
South Africa has experienced substantial growth in the number of registered political parties, particularly ahead of municipal elections, where relatively low barriers to entry allow small and locally focused organisations to contest individual councils.
The proposed annual-renewal system would require parties without representation to demonstrate an ongoing intention to remain registered rather than retaining registration indefinitely without further administrative action.
The Bill would also introduce a new election-contest eligibility rule.
EWN reported on Monday that a party would have to be registered by the date on which an election is called in order to contest that election, preventing organisations from registering after the electoral process has formally begun and then attempting to enter the contest.
Parliament’s official summary confirms that the Bill inserts new provisions governing the eligibility of registered parties to contest elections in both the Electoral Commission Act and the Municipal Electoral Act.
The proposed changes come during an unusually crowded municipal election.
The IEC received more than 142,000 candidate nominations for roughly 10,500 council seats ahead of the November vote, while hundreds of political parties are participating nationally.
Johannesburg alone has about 80 parties entered in its proportional-representation contest, followed by Tshwane, eThekwini and Ekurhuleni with similarly large fields.
The legislation would not itself determine which candidates appear on the 4 November 2026 ballot.
That process is already being conducted under the election timetable following the proclamation of the election on 7 August, with the IEC scheduled to publish certified candidate lists on 16 September.
The Bill nevertheless has immediate institutional significance because government has explicitly presented it as legislation intended to strengthen the electoral framework ahead of the 2026 municipal election.
Cabinet approved its introduction in July, saying the proposed amendments were intended to strengthen election administration and support free, fair and credible elections.
A second major component concerns the Electoral Court.
The Bill proposes increasing the number of judges serving on the court from three to six.
EWN reported that the increase would allow the Electoral Court to constitute more than one sitting simultaneously during periods of heavy election litigation.
An ordinary sitting would comprise four judges and one non-judicial member.
The Bill also changes the mechanism for selecting the non-judicial member, with the appointment to be determined by the Electoral Court’s Judge President rather than following a recommendation from the Judicial Service Commission.
The proposed expansion comes at a particularly relevant moment.
The Electoral Court is expected to face disputes arising from the current municipal election candidate process, including challenges involving nomination compliance and parties that failed to complete submissions before the IEC’s 28 August deadline.
The ANC has already indicated that it is considering Electoral Court proceedings over candidate submissions that it says were affected by technical difficulties.
The IEC disputes the ANC’s explanation and has maintained that candidates who were not formally submitted before the deadline cannot simply be added afterwards.
Any such litigation would proceed under the existing law unless and until the amendment legislation is enacted and brought into operation.
The Bill also proposes changes affecting the voters’ roll.
It would amend voter-registration eligibility requirements, including provisions relating to residential addresses, and limit objections to the provisionally compiled voters’ roll rather than allowing objections at later stages.
It would further clarify the IEC’s authority when deciding those objections.
These changes concern a recurring feature of South African electoral litigation: the accuracy of voter-registration information and the procedures available to challenge the roll before an election.
The legislation should not be confused with a separate private member’s Electoral Laws Amendment Bill introduced earlier by ActionSA MP Lerato Ngobeni.
That measure, B33-2025, deals with political and exit polling and proposes creating a Polling Ombud.
The current B24-2026 is an executive Bill introduced by the Minister of Home Affairs and deals principally with party registration, election eligibility, voter-registration rules and the Electoral Court.
The new Bill must still complete the parliamentary process.
It will require consideration by the relevant National Assembly committee, followed by votes in Parliament and presidential assent before its provisions become law.
That process could produce amendments to the current text.
Its timing will also be important.
With less than two months remaining before municipal voting, Parliament will have to determine which proposed reforms can practically and constitutionally take effect during the current electoral cycle and which would principally govern elections thereafter.
For political parties, the longer-term effect is clear: organisations without representation would no longer be able to remain indefinitely on the party register without periodically confirming their status.
For the electoral system, the expansion of the Electoral Court could prove equally consequential as increasingly fragmented elections generate more candidate, party and result disputes requiring rapid judicial resolution.
