The ANC will not contest the November 4 local elections in six municipalities after the Electoral Court on Wednesday morning dismissed its appeal to force the Electoral Commission to accept its late candidate submissions.
In a double blow for secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, the court also granted the DA leave to intervene as a party in the case – a victory for the ANC’s Government of National Unity partner which argued the ruling party should not get special treatment.
The order, confirmed by registrar of the Electoral Court Lebogang Lengana in court papers seen by Africa Daily, was blunt.
“The DA is granted leave to intervene as a party in these. The ANC appeal is dismissed,” the order reads.
The court further refused an application by the African Transformation Movement to join the matter, ruling it was brought too late.
“It is declared that the ATM application for leave to intervene was not properly before the Court, having been brought inordinately late, contrary to this Court’s directives issued on 9 September 2026, and the absence of any application for condonation for its late filing,” the papers state.
The court made no order as to costs.
The ruling ends a frantic 48-hour legal scramble that has embarrassed Luthuli House.
The judgment was reserved late on Tuesday after a two-and-a-half-hour hearing that exposed the ANC’s chaotic candidate submission process and forced the governing party to plead for a reprieve.
At the heart of the dispute is the ANC’s admission that it missed the 28 August deadline for more than 180 councillor candidates. The party blamed a technical glitch on the IEC’s online nomination system for failing to upload lists in six municipalities across KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and the Eastern Cape.
ANC lawyer Daniel Burger argued the party had complied in substance – completing the required forms, uploading supporting documents and paying the necessary deposits – but that the IEC’s system failed to properly capture and process them.
Burger told the court that his client’s candidates were being unlawfully excluded over a technicality and that voters would be deprived of their right to choose the ANC.
The IEC flatly rejected that version, saying there was no glitch and the ANC simply failed to complete the final submission step. The Commission argued the ANC understood the rules and knew very well that there was no system failure. Other parties, including small parties with minimal staff, managed to submit on time using the same system.
The DA delivered the sharpest rebuke. Its lawyer Michael Bishop told the court that rigid adherence to deadlines is essential to free and fair elections and that rules must apply equally to every party.
To bend the rules for the ANC, Bishop argued, would create two sets of rules – one for the ruling party and one for everyone else. The court agreed to let the DA in, a significant procedural win that allowed the opposition to oppose the ANC directly.
The party will now have no candidates in wards it was expected to contest, handing the opposition a walkover and demolishing Mbalula’s repeated claim that he has professionalised the ANC’s internal systems.
Opposition parties were quick to claim vindication. The DA said the judgment affirms that no party is above the law, while smaller parties who met the deadline complained privately that the ANC expected the court to rescue it from its own incompetence.
The ANC has not yet indicated whether it will appeal to the Constitutional Court.
Ballot papers for the November 4 polls must be finalised in the next few weeks.
