THE Democratic Alliance (DA), COPE and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) say they will oppose the ANC’s Electoral Court application for the reopening of the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) candidate list registration.
The EFF has also called on other political parties to join it in opposing the ANC’s action against the IEC.
So far, the DA and COPE have publicly joined the EFF’s call that the Electoral Court must reject the ANC’s application with the ‘contempt it deserves’.
The three opposition parties said the ruling party must just accept that they have failed to meet the deadline to register some of their candidates
The ANC wants the system to be opened for at least one day so it can submit nominations.
The ANC’s move is supported by the United Democratic Movement (UDM).
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said the IEC’s timetable was unrealistic to start off with.
ANC Deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte confirmed on Friday that the ruling party has filed an urgent application in the electoral court, asking it to force the IEC to accept those candidates who were excluded, after the party “experienced glitches” with the electoral body’s online system.
Duarte said “the IEC [Electoral Commission of SA] system repeatedly froze and locked out our administrators, which meant that the data that we’d entered was voided and we had to enter it again.”
Duarte said that many candidate registrations were rejected by the IEC website because they were registered in other wards.
The DA said it was strongly opposed to the ANC’s application to the Electoral Court seeking to compel the IEC to reopen its candidate list system.
“The ANC has indicated that it experienced numerous technical problems with the IEC’s registration system which prevented the party from registering some of their candidates in 30 municipalities,” said the DA in a statement.
“This reasoning holds no water, considering that the DA and many other political parties successfully submitted their full candidate lists without reporting any serious technical problems. Political parties knew since 6 July 2021 that the final date for submission would be 23 August 2021.”
The DA added: “The IEC cannot bend to the will of the ANC and must therefore oppose this frivolous application. Indeed, for the sake of consistency, the IEC should vigorously oppose the ANC’s application — on the basis of past precedent. It is important to recall that the IEC previously barred candidates from the NFP from contesting the 2016 Local Government Elections after the party failed to pay its registration fees on time.”
The DA said the IFP case of 2011, when it did not submit candidates in time for Umzumbe, was taken right up to the Constitutional Court where the IEC’s position was confirmed: ‘non-compliance with the election timetable cannot be condoned in order to ensure free and fair elections.’
The IEC revealed on Tuesday that only two political parties have registered to contest for 10 285 municipal council seats in 257 municipalities, but declined to reveal their names.
The DA and EFF have confirmed that they are contesting all municipal council seats.
The EFF said it will brief its lawyers to start preparing papers to oppose ANC’s application.
- Inside Politics
