South Africans understand the problem confronting the ANC without knowing anything about electoral software.
You can spend an hour writing an email. You can attach every necessary document, check the addresses but until you press send, the email has not gone anywhere.
The same principle lies at the heart of the argument over candidate lists before the 2026 local government elections. Candidates might have been captured.
Documents might have been uploaded. Officials might have believed their work was complete. But the uncomfortable question remains — whether the lists were submitted before the deadline.
The distinction asks whether political parties believe electoral rules are fixed boundaries applying equally to everybody or obstacles to renegotiate when inconvenient. That matters because politicians who bend rules to obtain power might bend them once they possess it.
The questions cannot disappear beneath technical explanations. When were the lists finalised? Who was responsible for completing the submissions? Were there error messages or warnings? Did the system malfunction or did officials fail to complete the final step?
If the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s system failed and prevented nominations from being submitted, the IEC has a serious problem to explain. An electoral authority cannot allow a technological defect to disenfranchise candidates or voters and hide behind its deadline.
Accountability cannot depend on which explanation is politically convenient. The ANC must produce its evidence. The IEC must produce its evidence. An electronic audit trail should show what happened.
This is why calls for flexibility should make voters nervous. Deadlines are not bureaucratic cruelty. Elections depend on certainty. Parties must know when nominations close, where candidates stand and who voters are contesting.
Once deadlines become negotiable, the problem does not end with late paperwork because candidate selection is never merely about names on a spreadsheet. It determines who gains access to power. Councillors vote on budgets and influence procurement, infrastructure, and service delivery. A candidate list, therefore, is a map of future power.
That makes small procedural compromises dangerous. A party that learns a deadline can be negotiated might learn a broader lesson about rules. Today, it might be an electoral deadline; tomorrow, it might be procurement rules, council procedures, oversight or public money.
The principle is bigger than the ANC. It must apply to every political party. Electoral law cannot contain a political VIP lane. The ballot paper is not a party’s private property. It is an instrument of democracy.
The people affected by candidate-list battles are ultimately voters living with broken roads, sewage, unreliable water and collapsing municipal infrastructure. They will live with the people at the party’s place inside council chambers.
They are entitled to ask whether those seeking the authority to enforce rules upon everyone else are themselves prepared to obey rules when power is at stake.
That is the warning hidden inside an argument about a button.
You can type the email. You can attach the documents. You can insist everybody knows what you intended to do. But democracy cannot run on intention. At some point, you have to press send.
If politicians are permitted to bend the rules that allow them to obtain power, nobody should be surprised when they bend them after they possess it.
• Mdakane is a senior journalist for ‘Sunday World’
- The core issue before the 2026 local government elections is whether candidate lists were submitted before the deadline, not just completed or uploaded.
- Political parties must treat electoral rules as fixed boundaries and not negotiable obstacles, as bending these rules to gain power risks future rule-breaking.
- The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) must clarify if system malfunctions or official errors prevented timely submission of candidate lists, backed by an electronic audit trail.
- Deadlines in elections are essential for certainty, ensuring parties know when nominations close and who stands for election, as candidate lists determine future power and governance.
- Allowing flexibility on electoral deadlines risks broader rule-breaking in governance, affecting public services and undermining democratic accountability for all political parties.
You can spend an hour writing an email. You can attach every necessary document, check the addresses but until you press send, the email has not gone anywhere.
Documents might have been uploaded. Officials might have believed their work was complete. But the uncomfortable question remains — whether the lists were submitted before the deadline.
If the Electoral Commission of
Accountability cannot depend on which explanation is politically convenient.
Once deadlines become negotiable, the problem does not end with late paperwork because candidate selection is never merely about names on a spreadsheet. It determines who gains access to power. Councillors vote on budgets and influence procurement, infrastructure, and service delivery. A candidate list, therefore, is a map of future power.
You can type the email. You can attach the documents. You can insist everybody knows what you intended to do. But democracy cannot run on intention. At some point, you have to press send.
If politicians are permitted to bend the rules that allow them to obtain power, nobody should be surprised when they bend them after they possess it.
• Mdakane is a senior journalist for ‘
