South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says the African National Congress (ANC) is considering taking its dispute with the country’s electoral authorities to court after alleged technical problems affected candidate nominations for November’s local elections.
The dispute centres on the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) candidate submission system, with the ANC maintaining that technical difficulties prevented some nominations from being completed before the August 28 deadline.
The IEC has rejected suggestions that its system was not functioning when nominations closed at 5pm and has ruled out reopening submissions for political parties or independent candidates that missed the deadline.
Speaking during an ANC campaign event in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, Ramaphosa said the party had prepared its nationwide candidate list but encountered difficulties when interacting with the IEC system.
“There were some glitches, glitches with regard to just the interface with the IEC system,” Ramaphosa said, adding that the problems affected only certain areas.
According to the IEC, 142,072 nominations were received for 10,526 council seats, representing candidates from 504 political parties. Of those parties, 299 used the Online Candidate Nomination System, while another 205 lodged their nominations manually at IEC offices.
However, the Commission said 2,274 candidate names entered into the online system had not been formally submitted by the deadline. Those entries were associated with 45 political parties and included 480 prospective proportional representation candidates and 1,794 ward candidates.
Under the IEC’s current position, those candidates cannot contest the election because entering their details into the system did not constitute formal submission.
Ramaphosa characterised the problem as limited and potentially manageable, while arguing that technical difficulties should not prevent voters from having their preferred candidates on the ballot.
“This is not only affecting the ANC,” he said. “There are a number of other parties… so there should be a solution to be found, because the technical glitches should not in the end deprive our people from being able to vote for their candidates.”
The ANC is now examining several avenues for challenging the outcome, including a possible application to the Electoral Court. Ramaphosa also suggested the dispute could potentially be resolved through discussions involving the IEC, political parties and the Political Party Liaison Committee.
The nomination problems have reportedly affected ANC candidates in municipalities across KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Eastern Cape.
The IEC is continuing its compliance checks and is expected to publish the final candidate lists on September 16.
ANC President Cde Cyril Ramaphosa addresses the media on the IEC system glitch, on the sidelines of today’s door-to-door campaign in Tembisa.#ANCManifesto2026 #LetsBuildBetterCommunities #VoteANC2026 pic.twitter.com/UG0IsBfDQe
— ANC – African National Congress (@MYANC) September 4, 2026
Step 1: Election not going Cyril’s way.
Step 2. No one told you Cyril wanted to be King.
Step 3. Civil War on it’s way.