‘A lecturer wouldn’t refuse to mark a draft’: ANC’s ConCourt argument over 181 candidates

The ANC has appealed to the Constitutional Court against a September 16 Electoral Court ruling that excluded 181 of its councillor candidates from the upcoming local government elections. The party contends that the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) should treat its lists of candidates the same way it treats a student's draft essay handed in to a lecturer, arguing that the lists were uploaded to the IEC's online system before the deadline, even though they had not been marked as final.

The six affected municipalities include Port St Johns, Ngquza Hill, Walter Sisulu, Sundays River Valley, Mangaung, and uMshwathi.

Advocate Daniel Berger SC, representing the ANC, drew a parallel between the situation and a student submitting a draft essay to their lecturer, stating that the lecturer would not refuse to assess the essay simply because it was a draft. He argued that once the deadline passed, the lists on the system could no longer be changed and were therefore final.

Berger also noted that the "submit as final" button in the IEC's software is a feature, not a legal requirement, and that the ANC had complied with all other steps of the online system before failing to complete the final submission.

The IEC's Deputy Chief Justice Dunstan Mlambo questioned the ANC on how voters would be informed if their chosen candidate was excluded due to a missed click on the final submission button. Berger acknowledged that the requirement to click the button was not present in any statute, regulation, gazette notice, or election timetable. Justice Kate Savage expressed astonishment at the ANC's finalization of its lists nationwide but not in these six municipalities, suggesting that the negligence was "quite extraordinary."