An answering affidavit by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), in which it provides a detailed account of the ANC’s use of its candidate nomination system before the August 28 deadline, has put new pressure on the party’s legal challenge over 181 candidates excluded from the November 4 local government elections.In an application with the electoral court, the ANC contends that its candidate information was captured and uploaded to the IEC’s online candidate nomination system before the 5pm deadline, but that technical problems prevented its administrators from completing the final submission.The IEC disputes this, arguing that capturing or uploading information was not equivalent to submitting a nomination. An affidavit, filed on September 8 by chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo, states that parties had to click “Submit Wards/PR As Final” to complete the process, which was repeatedly explained during training of the submission process. Read: Chikane left off ANC mayoral list in ‘error’, explains MbalulaANC online portal administrator Shanaz Lamara attended a June training session, and additional training was provided in the Eastern Cape, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal with ANC representatives.The IEC says the final submission instruction was highlighted in red on four pages of its training presentation and demonstrated practically to parties. The commission also relies on the ANC’s own activity on the system shortly before the deadline. It says the party successfully submitted candidate lists for other municipalities at 4.57pm and 4.58pm on August 28. At 5pm, the six municipalities at the centre of the dispute were recorded as “Not Submitted As Final”.The IEC says there was no recorded system incident at or near the times the ANC claims it experienced difficulties, at 4:34pm and 4.57pm. It also says 299 parties used the electronic system, and 2,274 candidates from 45 parties were captured but not finally submitted. The commission argues that this figure does not, on its own, establish a system failure.The consequences of the dispute could be significant. The 181 affected ANC candidates comprise 130 proportional representation candidates and 51 ward candidates across six municipalities: Ingquza Hill and uMshwathi in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Port St Johns, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape and Mangaung in the Free State are the worst affected.In Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, the ANC’s ward and proportional representation candidates are affected. Should the court reject the ANC’s application, the party could be absent from the ballot in both municipalities.It won 46 seats in Ingquza Hill in 2021, including 28 ward and 18 proportional representation seats. In Port St Johns it won 31 of 39 seats, including all 20 ward seats and 11 proportional representation seats.Those 77 seats would not simply transfer to opposition parties. They would be contested and allocated among parties on the ballot, but the ANC would not have the opportunity to defend them. In the other four municipalities, the ANC’s ward candidates remain on the ballot while its proportional representation lists are affected. That creates another problem. Without a proportional representation list, the ANC cannot recover seats through proportional representation and would have to rely entirely on ward victories to build its council representation.Read: PETER BRUCE | Chikane’s ANC comeback turns into political farceMangaung is the clearest example. The metropolitan council has 101 seats, comprising 51 ward and 50 proportional representation seats. In 2021, the ANC won 40 wards and 11 proportional representation seats, giving it 51 seats and an outright majority.Without its proportional representation list, the ANC would need to win all 51 wards to secure a simple majority. In Walter Sisulu, the ANC won three proportional representation seats in 2021; it won three in Sunday’s River Valley and two in uMshwathi.Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns form part of OR Tambo District Municipality, which had 59 councillors in the previous council, 40 of whom were from the ANC. But the district election is separate, meaning the loss of local council representation does not automatically translate into an equivalent loss of district seats.The evidence presented by the IEC also focuses on a narrower question than whether the system was generally functioning: whether a technical failure prevented the ANC from completing a legally required final step, or whether the party simply failed to complete the process before the deadline.Political analyst Wayne Sussman said the loss of the proportional representation seats could affect the ANC’s ability to retain its majorities in those councils.He added the IEC’s evidence was significant, especially in light of previous cases where parties failed to comply with candidate nomination requirements. Sussman cited the National Freedom Party’s exclusion from the 2016 local government elections after problems with its candidate lists; a Cape Town Ward 56 by-election in which the DA was unable to contest after failing to submit candidate details correctly; and the Labour Party’s inability to contest the 2024 national and provincial elections.“I would be surprised if the court would find otherwise,” Sussman said, arguing that the IEC had historically been firm in enforcing nomination requirements. Local government nominations are especially complicated because parties must manage candidates across individual wards, municipalities and proportional-representation (PR) lists, he added.“Every ward in every council is a very complex process, far more complex than submitting your candidates for the national and provincial elections,” he said. That makes internal auditing and planning essential, with candidate submissions needing to be checked at local, regional and provincial levels, he added.Sussman said the ANC should also have anticipated problems with the nomination and finalisation process rather than leaving them until the deadline.Sussman said the potential exclusion was especially serious because Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns had remained important parts of the ANC’s electoral base despite the party’s broader decline.Sussman expects the ANC to remain competitive in Mangaung, estimating that it could win 39-42 wards. But the loss of the proportional representation list would significantly narrow its route to an outright majority.Political analyst Paul Berkowitz agreed that the IEC’s evidence appeared strong, including that the commission had previously approached the electoral court for an opinion.But he cautioned against using the dispute to draw a simple conclusion about the ANC’s entire candidate nomination process, saying lists had been removed, edited and added at the last minute. “It suggests that the internal systems are a mess,” he said.Berkowitz said the consequences could be particularly severe in Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, while the loss of proportional representation could make retaining majorities more difficult in the other affected municipalities. Still, he cautioned against assuming that the dispute would automatically affect the ANC’s district representation.“The district vote is a separate ballot,” Berkowitz said. “I haven’t seen any news about those lists being affected.” The court will ultimately determine whether the ANC’s captured information amounts to a valid submission, whether a technical failure prevented completion of the process and whether the circumstances justify intervention after the deadline.For the ANC the stakes go well beyond 181 candidates. A failed court challenge could leave it unable to contest both ward and proportional representation seats in two municipalities where it previously dominated, while forcing it to win significantly more ward contests in four others to compensate for the loss of proportional representation.Business Day