ANC will head to Electoral Court over candidate lists – Duarte
African National Congress (ANC) deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte has detailed the myriad of problems faced by the governing party to submit candidate lists on deadline day.
Political parties contesting the upcoming local elections had until Monday evening to send their lists to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
Speaking at a briefing on Thursday, Duarte said the ANC in dozens of municipalities failed to register their nominations.
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"The ultimate impact, (is that) between 29 and 30 municipalities would not be able to vote for an ANC candidate if the system is not reopened to allow us to make the corrections that we need to make."
Duarte said due to the glitches in the system the party will head to the Electoral Court on Friday to ask for an extension to the deadline.
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The IEC has already rejected the ANC's appeal.
"We faced numerous challenges. Many candidates' ID were rejected, they were not registered properly in the ward where they were selected as a candidate, and therefore the IEC system did not have them as a registered voter.
"Secondly, the IEC system repeatedly froze and locked out our administrators during the final few hours before the deadline. Data entered into the system was voided and had to be re-entered.
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"We made the IEC aware of it and made a formal representation to the IEC to consider this. The IEC responded by saying the closing time was firm and, therefore, they are rejecting our appeal. For that reason, we are going to the electoral court."
