Johannesburg- The ANC on Monday emerged as the biggest winner following a ruling by the Constitutional Court held that the decision of the Electoral Commission (IEC) to re-open the candidate nomination process for the 2021 municipal elections was not unconstitutional.
This comes following an application made by the Democratic Alliance (DA), seeking to declare the decision made by the IEC to re-open the candidate nomination process in the 2021 local government elections (LGE), unconstitutional and unlawful invalid.
The apex court on the 3rd of this month had dismissed the IEC’s application to postpone the elections to next year, and authorized it to amend the election timetable in accordance with a new proclaimed date.
The IEC then said that allowing voters to register goes hand in hand with them being allowed to vote for candidates of their choice. However, the Democratic Alliance took issue with the IEC’s decision saying it privileges some parties such as the ANC that were unable to get in all their candidates to the IEC by the August 23 deadline.
Due to the risk of the election not being free and fair because of the Covid-19 pandemic in the alternative, the Commission had sought an order declaring that its failure to hold the local government elections on 27 October, was unconstitutional and that such declaration of invalidity is suspended to allow it until 23 February 2022 to correct the constitutional defect.
Subsequently, the Commission also advised that it would be amending the election timetable to include the re-opening of the candidate nomination process.
Aggrieved by this decision, the DA launched its urgent application, the subject of these
proceedings.
The DA argued that properly construed, paragraph 5(c)(iii) of the order only
entitled the Commission to amend the election timetable to the extent that it may be
“reasonably necessary”.
According to the DA, this was limited to the addition of new voters to the roll and did not include any adjustment in respect of party lists and nominations.
The DA further argued that this Court’s dismissal of the Economic Freedom Fighter’s relief in the main application, to amend the Disaster Management Act Regulations so as to permit
gatherings of more than 100 persons for the sole purpose of enabling political parties to
conduct their internal processes for selecting candidates, was a judicial determination to
the effect that the candidate nomination process may not be re-opened.
The local government polls are scheduled to take place on the 1st of November in what is expected to be one of the hotly contested elections since the dawn of democracy.
This weekend saw ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, EFF leader Julius Malema and the DA’s John Steenhuisen crisscross several municipalities in trying to woo votes.
Key metros such as Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay are toss-ups.
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