In the coming weeks, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will be presenting its arguments at the Electoral Court to challenge political parties who have submitted only one name on their proportional representation candidate lists for the local government election. These actions are not only deliberately deceitful, but they seek to undermine the very principles that govern a free and fair democratic election.

When parties submit their candidate lists to the Electoral Commission (IEC), they submit two different lists per municipality. One is for ward candidates and one is for proportional representation (PR) candidates. These are then published by the IEC. Except it seems that some political parties have submitted complete lists of ward candidates but have then deliberately submitted only one name per municipality on their PR lists. The parties concerned are the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), the Economic Freedom Fighters, ActionSA, and GOOD, to name a few.

A primary reason for this, which cuts across the various political parties, is that the way they compile and choose PR candidates is so deeply flawed they do not want to reveal any names until the very last minute. If they were to produce lists, their members would complain, take them to court, or revolt if they feel the way they were compiled was not transparent. This is a common occurrence.

It happened in 2021 with ActionSA, when the party faced a revolt from members in Soweto who had campaigned for it, been ward candidates, but were excluded from the PR list. Many had lost their ward candidate elections, but they had campaigned hard.

The issue with PR lists is that unless there is a clear process, mapped out and transparent, for how political parties to choose candidates, it opens them up to internal issues. It creates the impression of leaders sitting around a boardroom table, picking and choosing who they want based on criteria they just made up. Thus, they delay any publication of full lists until after the election to avoid havoc during campaigning. You take the pain afterwards, once the results are in.

Rivals

Some political parties may have recruited candidates from their rivals to be on their PR list, and they do not want those political parties to know until the very last minute. I suspect this could well be the case with the MKP, whose lists may contain the names of current African National Congress (ANC) members or councillors. This is deeply problematic and fundamentally undermines the electoral process, as it allows candidates to effectively be “double parking” themselves across multiple political parties until the very last minute.

Both the DA and the ANC publish comprehensive PR lists for municipalities across the country. These lists reflect what support these parties anticipate they will receive during voting. They can do this because their selection processes work and they understand that the principles that undermine the election process are to be as transparent as possible.

This is important, because once the IEC publishes the list, the law makes provision for members of the public to review the lists, scrutinise, and even file complaints against candidates. Perhaps they have identified something that disqualifies a candidate. For example, you cannot stand as a councillor if you have been declared insolvent.

This is where it gets entertaining. GOOD and Rise Mzansi have recently said they are checking whether Helen Zille can stand as a candidate in Johannesburg. You know why they can do this? Because the DA released a publicised PR list with the names of its candidates. You know who has not released a full PR list? GOOD and Rise Mzansi.

There is also a conflict in law. A provision in the Systems Act explicitly states that political parties cannot adjust their PR lists until after the first Council meeting. This conflicts with another provision, which allows parties to supplement their PR lists if they receive more votes than they anticipated. The question of when this supplementation should occur is a critical one.

Challenge

And herein lies the challenge. The DA and ANC submit thousands of names on the PR lists for municipalities across the country. They could easily decide to keep their PR lists a secret and submit one name based on the standards that are being kept by other parties.

Then, suddenly, after the election, when the results are out, they go to the IEC and produce all these candidates that must be sworn in. The IEC will likely not have the time to check these candidates, nor would they have been available to the general public to scrutinise.

In no political reality is this situation acceptable. It makes zero sense. Political parties are manipulating their list processes, hiding candidates, and concealing who they want to elect, for no other reason that it suits them politically, while the rest of the country must accept these shadow tactics. We must not. The DA’s case at the Electoral Court is critical in this regard. It is going to reveal these tactics and force the court to give a proper interpretation of the expectations behind the electoral process.

Jordan Griffiths is the private secretary and adviser of Deputy Minister Ashor Sarupen.