‘We have seen this movie before’: MK party’s warning to the IEC on candidate submissions

The MK party has cautioned the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) against treating the ANC with leniency regarding candidate submissions. This warning follows the ANC's appeal to the IEC to enable the party to finalize registering over 100 councillor candidates on the commission's online portal. The ANC acknowledged encountering issues with the IEC's system during the submission process.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the MK party emphasized that they were not requesting the commission to endorse late nominations, but rather to acknowledge and process the information already received and stored by the IEC before the deadline, rather than disregarding it due to technical failures that hindered final confirmation.

The MK party spokesperson, Sifiso Mahlangu, stated that the former liberation movement, the ANC, cannot expect South Africans to accept their explanation without critical examination, and the IEC cannot expect political parties and millions of voters to have faith in an electoral process where deadlines seem to be flexible when the ANC is involved.

Mahlangu warned that if a technical malfunction occurred, the IEC must fully explain to the public what happened and which submissions were impacted. He also pointed out the disappearance of the live results dashboard in 2024, which altered the MK party's vote count, and expressed their refusal to accept a scenario where the rules are strictly applied to opposition parties while the ANC is granted special consideration or a political resolution to adjust the deadline.

Mahlangu demanded that the ANC be treated equally to all other political parties, stating, "If the MK party had failed to complete its submissions, we have no doubt that we would be told to accept the consequences. We therefore demand that the same standard be applied to the ANC."