The Electoral Commission has delivered a scathing assessment of the Democratic Alliance’s Electoral Court bid, leaving the party’s challenge in tatters and prompting fierce pushback from GOOD and ActionSA.
The IEC’s answering affidavit effectively dismantles the DA’s case, in which it hauled GOOD, ActionSA, the EFF and the MK Party to court for allegedly concealing their proportional representation candidates by submitting single-name PR lists.
In its papers, the Commission describes the DA’s application as factually opportunistic and legally specious, warning that the relief it seeks would be disruptive and put the integrity of the November local government elections at risk.
GOOD Secretary-General Brett Herron said the Commission’s response was spot on.
“The IEC’s affidavit in response to the DA’s application is rightfully brutal,” Herron said.
“We agree that the DA’s argument is a ‘solution looking for a problem and it is unworkable as a matter of legal principle and in its practical implementation’.”
Herron said the IEC had exposed the DA’s double standards, pointing out that submitting a single-name list is a practice followed openly by parties across the political spectrum, including the DA itself, in successive elections. He said the DA offered no explanation why a practice it has followed is only now being challenged weeks before voting day.
He dismissed the DA’s accusation that GOOD is hiding its candidates as paranoia.
“The DA seems to have lost rational judgment. They are clearly hallucinating because there is no rational basis for such a strategy,” Herron said.
Herron said all of GOOD’s candidates are named as ward candidates and are not concealed, only not yet ranked on a PR list.
“We will rank them for the PR list after the elections, based on the election results, and taking into account each candidate’s performance during the campaign, and considering whether we need any particular skills or experience for any position we take up in coalition governments we form part of. So, our approach is perfectly rational and has a legitimate purpose,” he said.
ActionSA President Herman Mashaba said the IEC’s affidavit vindicated his party’s view that the DA’s case was frivolous.
“ActionSA welcomes the IEC’s answering affidavit, which we believe affirms the view that the DA’s application is opportunistic, hypocritical and frivolous,” Mashaba said.
While the Commission says it elects not to take a side, Mashaba said its affidavit paints a damning picture of the DA’s misguided case. He quoted paragraph 13 of the IEC’s papers:
“The Commission is firmly of the view that the DA’s case is without merit in law. Many of the arguments made by the DA are factually opportunistic and legally specious… The relief it seeks would be seriously disruptive, and would put the integrity of these elections at risk.”
Mashaba pointed to another critical admission in paragraph 75: “The submission of lists containing a single name, and the supplementation of lists that prove insufficient, did not arise for the first time in these elections. The DA itself submitted lists containing a single name in twelve municipalities for the LGE 2026.”
The IEC also notes that the DA itself accepts that a party may lawfully submit a list containing one candidate.
Mashaba said this is why ActionSA has asked for a punitive costs order.
“The entire court application is cynical, makes unsubstantiated leaps of logic and law, and is a waste of time for political parties, the IEC and the courts, all of whom have better uses for their time with a month to go before the elections,” he said.
He argued the case was morally bankrupt, as it seeks to exclude parties that collectively received more than 25% of the national vote in 2024.
“What kind of political party openly advocates for a departure from the cornerstone of our electoral democracy: that councils should reflect the will of the South African people?” Mashaba said.
He also took aim at the DA’s transparency claims, saying ActionSA’s PR lists are made up of ward candidates ranked by performance, giving voters power to shape them, unlike the DA’s closed process.
“The DA’s claim that this is about transparency is being laid bare,” he said.
The IEC has further warned in paragraph 202 that the DA chose to launch the application weeks before voting day, when the Commission’s resources are committed to conducting the elections.
The matter will be ventilated in the Electoral Court, with the IEC warning that granting the DA’s request would throw the election into chaos.
The EFF and MK Party had not responded to questions at the time of publishing.
