The African National Congress (ANC) has suffered a major setback ahead of November’s local government elections (LGEs) after the Electoral Court dismissed its attempt to reinstate candidates excluded from the ballot.

The dispute arose after the ANC failed to complete candidate submissions before the 28 August deadline set by the Electoral Commission (IEC), affecting candidates across six municipalities in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Free State.

In two of the municipalities, Port St Johns and Ingquza Hills (Flagstaff), both in the Eastern Cape, the party failed to submit candidates for both the ward and proportional representation (PR) lists. This means that as it stands there will be no ANC candidates standing in either municipality. Both municipalities have been safe ANC municipalities in the past (the party won around 70% of the vote in both places in the 2021 LGEs).

In the other four municipalities – Walter Sisulu (Burgersdorp) and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, Mangaung in the Free State, and uMshwathi (Wartburg) in KwaZulu-Natal – the party only failed to register its PR candidates. This will still have severe implications for its final seat tallies in those municipalities.

The ANC argued that the candidate information and supporting documents had been uploaded to the IEC's online nomination system before the 5PM deadline that day. However, the party had not completed the final step of selecting the “submit as final” option.

The party argued that this final electronic step was not specifically required by electoral legislation and that the information should therefore be considered submitted because it was already in the IEC’s possession.

The IEC disagreed, arguing that its system had been functioning properly and that the ANC had simply failed to complete the submission process. The Electoral Court has now dismissed the ANC’s challenge.

The ANC said it intends to appeal the ruling and called on its members and supporters to remain calm and disciplined while the legal process continues.

Unless the party succeeds in further legal proceedings, the affected candidates will remain excluded from the November elections, severely weakening the ANC in several municipalities as the party prepares for a closely contested local government election.