An EFF ward candidate in Msunduzi, KwaZulu-Natal, has become the latest test of the IEC’s certified councillor list after the party said its Ward 26 nominee was properly submitted but left out of the final list published by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC).
The September 16 list shows Sifiso Thamsanqa Dladla, 32, as the EFF candidate for Ward 25. The next EFF ward entry is Mandisa Ntombenhle Gasa, 31, in Ward 27. Ward 26, code 52205026, is simply absent.
The gap has now become more than a clerical curiosity because the EFF says the candidate was submitted, and the IEC has already acknowledged the omission and promised to correct it.
The west Pietermaritzburg ward covers Prestbury, Blackridge, Boughton, Napierville, Sunnyside and Wembley.
Last month EFF president Julius Malema campaigned in Msunduzi, addressing the party’s Ground Forces Forum at Pietermaritzburg City Hall as the EFF intensified its election drive in the municipality.
Approached for comment, EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini, who is also responsible for the KwaZulu-Natal campaign leg, said: “We have a candidate in all wards; please double-check your sources”.
EFF elections spokesperson Sixolise Gcilishe later sent the party’s formal response, saying Ward 26 had been submitted “but was inadvertently omitted from the final candidate list published by the IEC”.
“We immediately raised the matter with the commission and have been engaging with them directly,” the party said.
“The IEC has since confirmed that the omission has been corrected and that the candidate will be reflected on the republished list. We will, therefore, await the corrected list to be formally published.”
The IEC has not given Sunday World that explanation.
On September 18, after being asked directly what happened to the Ward 26 candidate and whether an investigation was under way, the commission said it would “look into this query and revert” but had not done so more than a week later.
The silence comes as the IEC defends the integrity of its Online Candidate Nomination System in litigation brought by the ANC over 181 excluded candidates. In that case, the commission relied on audit trails showing no system failure and argued that parties were responsible for completing the final submission step before the deadline.
The ANC has taken the dispute to the Constitutional Court. The UDM has said it was considering supporting the ANC’s court bid after ward candidates it says were submitted in Buffalo City failed to appear on the list.
The EFF case is potentially different from that of the ANC in that the candidate was properly submitted, accepted, and then omitted from the certified list by the IEC.
If confirmed, that would move the problem from party compliance to the accuracy of the IEC’s own certification process.
After undertaking eight days ago to investigate and revert, it has yet to explain how a submitted candidate disappeared from a list it had already certified.
In Msunduzi, the EFF record visibly jumps from Dladla in Ward 25 to Gasa in Ward 27, with Ward 26 missing in between.
- The EFF's Ward 26 candidate for Msunduzi was properly submitted but omitted from the IEC's published list, which the IEC has acknowledged and promised to correct.
- Sifiso Thamsanqa Dladla is listed as the EFF candidate for Ward 25, and Mandisa Ntombenhle Gasa for Ward 27, leaving Ward 26 absent on the IEC list.
- EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini confirmed the party has a candidate in all wards, while EFF spokesperson Sixolise Gcilishe stated the omission was inadvertent and is being rectified by the IEC.
- The IEC has not provided an explanation for the omission despite promising to investigate and revert, remaining silent over a week after being questioned by Sunday World.
- The case differs from the ANC dispute as the EFF candidate was accepted by the IEC but later omitted, potentially implicating the IEC's certification process accuracy.
