ZEERUST, Saturday 26 September 2026 — ActionSA has acknowledged errors in its candidate-capturing process in Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality after several party members from six wards discovered that their names were missing from the Electoral Commission’s certified candidate lists for the 4 November local government elections.
The affected members say their names had appeared on earlier candidate documentation but were absent when the IEC published its certified lists on 16 September, following the 28 August nomination deadline.
ActionSA’s North West leadership has described the discrepancies as administrative errors and denied that they resulted from deliberate manipulation.
The development has drawn attention to the party’s candidate administration in a municipality where ActionSA won a ward from the ANC in a by-election less than a year ago.
Candidates say names appeared on earlier lists
ActionSA member Pilot Mosothwane, from Ward 18, told SABC News that the affected members had copies and photographs of earlier lists on which their names appeared.
They later discovered that several of those names were missing from the IEC’s certified ward candidate lists.
SABC reported that the affected candidates were drawn from six wards in Ramotshere Moiloa.
The IEC’s certified lists are the product of a nomination process that closed at 5pm on 28 August.
IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo said ahead of the deadline that parties using the commission’s online candidate system could make changes while preparing their submissions, but that corrections or amendments would not be permitted once the nomination deadline had passed.
ActionSA acknowledges capturing errors
ActionSA North West provincial secretary Ofentse Kombe confirmed that errors had occurred during the candidate-capturing process.
He referred to instances of candidates being captured incorrectly or more than once and said the problems should not be attributed to malicious conduct by any individual.
Kombe said the matter had been discussed by the party’s provincial executive committee and that the provincial chairperson and secretary would engage the affected members and ward structures.
The acknowledgement means the dispute is not limited to claims made by disappointed prospective candidates: ActionSA’s provincial leadership accepts that mistakes were made during the process.
In the response reported by SABC, however, the party did not set out a process through which the affected names could be added to the certified lists.
Nomination deadline complicates position
The timing of the discovery leaves the party facing the IEC’s already-completed candidate certification process.
Political parties and independent candidates had until 5pm on 28 August to complete their nominations for the 2026 local government elections.
Mamabolo told Business Day before the deadline that the cut-off would be strictly applied and that candidate submissions could not be corrected or amended after it had passed.
That approach has already resulted in litigation during the current election.
The ANC approached the Electoral Court after 181 of its intended candidates across six municipalities were excluded because their information had been captured on the IEC’s online system but had not been finally submitted before the deadline.
The Electoral Court dismissed the ANC’s case on 16 September. The party subsequently approached the Constitutional Court seeking to overturn that decision.
ActionSA’s Ramotshere Moiloa dispute arises from different circumstances, with its provincial leadership attributing the problem to errors in candidate capturing rather than an incomplete final submission.
ActionSA won Ward 7 from ANC last year
The candidate-list problems come less than a year after ActionSA secured a notable by-election victory in Ramotshere Moiloa.
ActionSA candidate Moses Moumakwa won Ward 7 on 15 October 2025 with 33.49% of votes cast.
The ANC had held the ward after receiving 57.38% in the 2021 municipal elections.
Voter turnout in the 2025 by-election was 60.4%.
The victory gave ActionSA direct ward representation in the municipality and came during the party’s efforts to expand its organisation in the North West.
ActionSA has since identified Ramotshere Moiloa as one of the municipalities it intends to contest in the 2026 elections and has named Lerato Selebogo as its mayoral candidate there.
Ward and PR contests remain separate
The implications of the omissions will differ between the ward and proportional-representation contests.
In a local municipality such as Ramotshere Moiloa, voters receive separate ballots for a ward candidate, a party for the local council’s proportional-representation seats and a party for representation on the district council.
A candidate omitted from a ward ballot therefore affects the party’s ability to contest that particular ward through that individual.
It does not, by itself, remove the party from the proportional-representation contest where the party has submitted a valid PR list.
The effect in each of the six affected wards will consequently be determined by the candidates recorded on the IEC’s certified ward lists and ActionSA’s separately submitted party lists.
Candidate lists under scrutiny ahead of election
Candidate administration has emerged as a recurring issue ahead of the 4 November elections.
Apart from the ANC’s dispute with the IEC over its 181 excluded candidates, the DA has launched a separate Electoral Court challenge involving proportional-representation lists submitted by ActionSA, the EFF, MK Party and GOOD.
That case concerns the use of very short PR lists and the circumstances in which parties may later submit additional names if they win more seats than the number of candidates originally listed. The DA argues that the practice is inconsistent with the requirements governing candidate disclosure, while the matter remains before the court.
The legal questions in that case are separate from the candidate-capturing errors acknowledged by ActionSA in Ramotshere Moiloa.
ActionSA to engage affected members
For the affected ActionSA members, the immediate focus is now on the party’s response.
Kombe said the provincial leadership would meet the candidates and affected ward structures following discussions within the provincial executive committee.
The party has attributed the problem to administrative errors and rejected suggestions that the omissions were deliberately caused by an individual.
The candidate lists were certified on 16 September, however, after the IEC had already closed nominations and applied its deadline for amendments.
With the local government elections scheduled for 4 November, ActionSA now enters the final weeks of campaigning in Ramotshere Moiloa with candidate disputes affecting six wards in a municipality where it secured its first ward victory in the North West less than a year ago.
