<\/p>\n
The Constitutional Court ordered the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) to include 181 African National Congress (ANC) candidates in the November 4 local government elections.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The candidates comprise 51 ward and 130 proportional representation candidates across six municipalities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The IEC said 32 other parties were in a position similar to the ANC after nominating compliant candidates and paying election deposits but failing to submit their final lists.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Those parties had intended to contest 121 municipalities across metro, local and district ballots. \u201cIt would be irrational and offensive to the principle of parity of treatment to exclude parties similarly situated to the ANC,\u201d the IEC said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Commission said extending the ruling was necessary to ensure electoral contestants received equal treatment and that the elections remained free and fair.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another 13 parties were excluded after compliance checks found that nomination requirements had not been met.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The shortcomings included failure to pay election deposits and candidates not being registered on the voters\u2019 roll in municipalities where the parties intended to contest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Applying the ruling to similarly placed parties will affect ballots in 107 municipalities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The IEC must produce 33 million ballots, of which 27 million have already been printed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another 6.6 million ballots remain outstanding. These include ballots for the six municipalities affected by the ANC\u2019s court application.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The IEC delayed printing those ballots while awaiting the Constitutional Court\u2019s judgment, meaning no related printing costs had been incurred.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Commission will contact the 32 parties to establish whether participation in the elections is still intended.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Participating parties will be required to complete candidate-nomination processes and may supplement or substitute names where candidates appear on multiple lists. Approved candidates will then receive candidature certificates.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The IEC said the accelerated process would be limited to the ANC and 32 similarly situated parties.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
IEC Chairperson Mosotho Moepya said the Commission did not expect the additional work to affect the November 4 election date.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, logistical preparations had been significantly disrupted and would have to be completed within a shorter period.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The IEC reaffirmed its commitment to obeying court decisions and treating political parties fairly and consistently throughout the electoral process.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–SABC\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21186,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-48248","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"South Africa's (SA) Electoral Commission has allowed 32 additional political parties to submit candidate lists after extending a Constitutional Court ruling reinstating African National Congress (ANC) candidates in six municipalities.","published_date":"","news_description":"South Africa's (SA) Electoral Commission has allowed 32 additional political parties to submit candidate lists after extending a Constitutional Court ruling reinstating African National Congress (ANC) candidates in six municipalities.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48250,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48248\/revisions\/48250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}