News24 | ANC vs IEC: ConCourt grapples with what ‘submit’ really means

The Constitutional Court heard the ANC’s candidate list application on Monday.

Gallo Images/Sharon Seretlo

• The ANC seeks to overturn an Electoral Court ruling excluding its candidates from six municipalities in the 2026 local elections.
• The dispute centres on the ANC’s failure to press the “submit as final” button on the IEC’s online system by the 28 August 2026 deadline.
• The Constitutional Court is reviewing whether the ANC’s nominations were validly submitted under the law, despite the ANC not having completed this step.
• For more political news, visit News24 Politics.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) online portal’s “submit as final” button doesn’t submit anything, isn’t final and isn’t provided for in law, argued the ANC’s counsel in the Constitutional Court on Monday.

The ANC has approached the Constitutional Court to overturn an Electoral Court order that upheld the IEC’s exclusion of the party’s candidates from six municipalities in the local government elections scheduled for 4 November 2026.

The dispute arises from the ANC’s failure to press the “submit as final” button in the commission’s Online Candidate Nomination System for six municipalities before the 17:00 deadline on 28 August this year, despite having uploaded all required candidate information and paid the necessary deposits.

This meant 181 ANC candidates were excluded from contesting the elections in the Sundays River Valley, Walter Sisulu, Ngquza Hill, Port St Johns, uMshwathi, and Mangaung municipalities.

The ANC initially blamed technical faults in the online system, but retreated from that argument before the Electoral Court after the IEC demonstrated that it was unfounded.

READ | ANC takes IEC list battle for 181 excluded candidates to ConCourt

The Electoral Court upheld the exclusion on 16 September, accepting that the consequence was “disenfranchisement rather than enfranchisement, exclusion rather than participation”, but finding that this did not make its interpretation wrong.

The ANC then turned to the Constitutional Court, saying it is not seeking condonation or an extension of the deadline, but asks the apex court to declare that its nominations were validly submitted as a matter of law.

The Constitutional Court heard arguments in the matter on Monday.

Advocate Daniel Burger, SC, for the ANC, said the party asks for no special treatment or extra time; it is asking only that its compliance is judged according to the law.

He said the law or regulations do not provide for a “submit as final” button for the electoral system.

Burger said the ANC submitted the required documents and paid the deposits, as required by law.

READ | Claims of Mbalula ducking special NEC as party anxiously awaits ConCourt, audit outcomes

Deputy Chief Justice Dunstan Mlambo said the issue before the court is how the phrase “submit in the prescribed manner” should be interpreted.

He asked what Burger said about the argument that if you did not press the “submit as final” button, you did not comply with the form.

“We say, when you complete the form and save the form on the system, you have complied with the form,” said Burger.

Advocate Terry Motau, SC, for the IEC, argued that the ANC complied with the other requirements of the online system, and those are also not provided for in the regulations. He said they seek to take advantage of the system’s benefits, but “disavows” the step that it didn’t comply with.

Motau argued:

Therein lies the absurdity of their argument.

He said there were numerous training sessions for the online system, which remind parties three times when their submissions are not final.