The next argument over the local ballot is not a rally. It is a compliance window that opens today.
From 4 September the Electoral Commission of South Africa may call for copies of identity documents and signed acceptance-of-nomination forms. Those papers are due by 7 September. Dual-candidacy notices follow on 9 September. The final candidate list is due on 16 September. The vote is on 4 November.
That timetable now sits on a raw disagreement. The commission says 2 274 prospective candidates from 45 parties were captured on the online nomination system and never finally submitted before 17:00 on Friday 28 August — 480 on proportional-representation lists and 1 794 as potential ward candidates. Chair Mosotho Moepya and chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo have both said a name that only sat in a draft screen is not a candidate. Mamabolo’s line: the commission’s report shows no technical failure on its side. The portal will not reopen.
The ANC says that is not the whole story. Spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri has said the party uploaded lists before the cut-off and that a final batch covering parts of the Eastern Cape, one KwaZulu-Natal municipality and Mangaung in the Free State was “kicked out”. The party wants those already-captured names recognised. On its public wording it is not asking for a fresh late window for new people. It is asking for an inquiry into why the last portion bounced.
The IEC opened the same system to all contestants on 21 June. It has pointed to other parties that did lodge on the afternoon of the deadline. Deputy CEO Masego Sheburi has said the logs do not match a system-down claim. Mamabolo has also said the public internet is an ecosystem — volume, bandwidth, power — and that a fault on a party’s end is not a commission glitch.
A name typed into a form is not a candidate until the submission is completed and the statutory checks are passed: acceptance forms, deposits, and, for independents, supporter details. The commission has already recorded 142 072 nominations, 43% more than in 2021. That surge does not rescue a list that never closed.
Eastern Cape ANC structures have, separately, gone after Luthuli House in writing over who owned the provincial submission. That is an internal row. It does not bind the IEC. If the commission holds its line, the only remaining path is court. No outcome of that path is known this morning.
Do not invent a ward count. The 2 274 figure is national and multi-party. The ANC shortfall by municipality is still not on a public spreadsheet.
“Captured but not submitted” means the data sat in the commission’s online system and the party did not complete the final lodge before 17:00 on 28 August. The IEC says that is not a candidate. The ANC says those records should still count because they were already on the machine. Verification from today only covers names that were properly submitted.
If your party has no valid ward candidate and no valid PR list in your municipality, that party will not be on your ballot there. Rivals keep theirs. Hung councils get redrawn by absence, not by a speech. The 16 September list is the paper that decides who you can mark on 4 November.
* Will the IEC publish a municipal breakdown of the 2 274 unsubmitted names? Will the ANC produce a system log that survives the commission’s own records?
* If the final list on 16 September drops whole slates, who goes to court before November?