The ANC in a political mess ahead of the local government elections as the party failed to meet the candidate nomination submission deadline in about 35 municipalities across the country. 

The Political violence and unpaid salaries strike has led to the ANC missing the deadline to register all its candidates for the local government elections with the electoral commission of South Africa (IEC)

This is after The IEC closed its system on Monday night after opening it to parties on 3 August.

The party resorted to approaching the electoral court to request that another extension be given to political parties to file their nomination list of which the commission rejected their request and the party resolved to approach the electoral court.

The ANC blamed Covid-19 pandemic for missing the IEC’s registration deadline for numerous candidates additionally as arguing that the delay was due to faulty electronic systems.

“The argument that the ANC’s delay was due to a faulty electronic system is false and disingenuous because the IEC had an option of manual submissions for candidates that could not be submitted electronically,” the EFF said.

The EFF called on other political parties and also the IEC to oppose the ANC’s application to safeguard its integrity, saying that the governing party had ample time to question the election timetable.

“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 fulfill deadlines because of infighting and factionalism.

DA’s chairperson of the federal council Hellen Zille said her party registered its candidates with no glitches.

“Strangely, Jessie, the IEC’s online candidate submission system worked well for us. Was it only faulty when it came to the ANC’s submission?” she tweeted on Thursday.

Other political parties threaten to require action at law against the IEC should they offer the ANC a second chance to register its candidates

“The IEC dare not give the ANC another chance, we shall fight this with all our legal minds, if they were to be given a chance to register candidates for municipalities where they were either late or didn’t register their candidates,” said McKenzie on social media.

Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) national spokesperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa concurred that the IEC must do to the ANC what it did to the NFP in 2016, referring to when the IEC disqualified the National Freedom Party from the election for missing the submission deadline

“Fair is fair, let the ANC also be disqualified from the 35 municipalities where they didn’t register to vote. The voters will have a lot of other choices “. PA leader Gayton McKenzie said.