ANC blames IEC glitches for election blunder
Party to approach electoral court
The ANC says it will approach the Electoral Commission of SA to reopen its systems so the party can register local government candidates who could not be captured. The party has not been able to field candidates in 35 municipalities. “The system repeatedly froze and locked our administrators out during the final few hours before the deadline,” ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte said.
The ANC is to approach the electoral court to compel the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) to reopen its digital systems so that the party can register those of its local government candidates whose details could not be captured. The party has not been able to field candidates in 35 of the country’s 257 municipalities.
“Many candidates’ IDs were rejected due to the absence of voter registration during the period. The IEC system repeatedly froze and locked our administrators out during the final few hours before the deadline data already entered was voided and had to be reentered,” ANC deputy secretarygeneral Jessie Duarte said during a media briefing on Thursday.
“This will have a huge impact on citizens, political parties and society generally. In certain instances, this might result in a change of government regardless of how citizens might want to vote,” she said.
The IEC, which opened its systems on August 3, gave political parties and independent candidates until Monday at 9pm to register individuals who will contest positions on the councils of the country’s municipalities during the polls.
Duarte said the electoral body’s system suffered technical glitches on Monday when the party tried to enter data. This was after the party had confirmed on Monday that it had registered 10,000 candidates.
The ANC approached the IEC to reopen its systems, Duarte said, but the electoral body refused, prompting the governing party to launch its application at the electoral court.
The ANC is expected to file its application, which the EFF said it will oppose, on Friday.
The opposition party said the reasons put forward by the ANC to reopen the submission process is “false and disingenuous because the IEC had an option of manual submissions for candidates that could not be submitted electronically.”
IN INSTANCES, THIS MIGHT RESULT IN A CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT REGARDLESS OF HOW CITIZENS MIGHT WANT TO VOTE
“It is therefore opportunistic and unacceptable of the ANC, which knew of the election date before all political parties to approach the electoral court to accommodate their incompetence and inability to meet deadlines because of internal infighting and factionalism,” the EFF’s spokesperson, Vuyani Pambo, said in a statement.
Duarte said the technical glitches and other issues “beyond its control”, such as the banning of political gatherings during level 4 lockdown has prompted the party to seek relief from the electoral court.
“Covid-19 alert level 4 banned all meetings for most of July and this meant that more than 15,000 branch and community meetings had to be held from late July until August 20 to nominate and hold community meetings with ward candidates.
“This had a huge impact on the already tight deadlines we had to meet,” Duarte said.
Earlier this week the IEC said it would inform parties by Friday of candidates who may be appearing on multiple party lists, which is not permitted. Parties will have until September 2 to amend their candidate lists. The final list will be publicly available on September 7.
The ANC joined NGOs and other political parties in the
IEC’s bid at the Constitutional Court to postpone the elections to February. The case was heard in August and the outcome is pending.