Imagine a political organisation that has governed South Africa for more than three decades, shaped the country’s democratic institutions and commanded substantial organisational resources, finding itself before the Constitutional Court fighting to secure the participation of its own candidates in a municipal election.
Now imagine that organisation winning its case, celebrating the judgment and mobilising its campaign machinery. At the same time, millions of South Africans continue to confront unreliable water supplies, deteriorating infrastructure, unemployment and municipal services that frequently fail to meet their expectations.
Something about this picture should make us uncomfortable.
Not because the ANC was wrong to approach the courts. Access to justice is a constitutional right, and the protection of meaningful political participation is fundamental to democracy. Nor because the judgment should be questioned merely because it favoured the governing party.
The discomfort lies elsewhere, in a question of considerably greater importance: what exactly has the ANC won, and what will it do differently with the opportunity it has been given?
On 15 October 2026, the Constitutional Court upheld the ANC’s appeal concerning 181 candidates across six municipalities whose nominations had not been finally submitted through the Electoral Commission’s electronic system before the prescribed deadline. The judgment restored their participation in the forthcoming local government elections. The Court’s full reasons had not yet been published at the time of the initial ruling.
What remains unresolved is the separate question of organisational responsibility.
The Court determined the immediate legal outcome. It did not provide the ANC with a certificate of administrative excellence.
When victory becomes a substitute for accountability
The ANC has understandably welcomed the ruling as a victory for democratic participation. There is merit in protecting voters from losing electoral choices because of disputed nomination procedures.
Indeed, the broader constitutional significance became apparent when the Electoral Commission subsequently determined that 32 other political parties in comparable circumstances should receive similar treatment, while 13 others failed to meet additional legal requirements. This is an important reminder that constitutional principles must benefit political competitors as well as governing parties.
But there is another question that cannot disappear beneath the celebrations.
How did the ANC reach this position?
Who was responsible for verifying that its nominations had been completed? What evidence existed that the final submission was successful? Were warning mechanisms in place? What happened when difficulties emerged?
These are not allegations of misconduct. They are questions any organisation committed to sound governance should ask.
This is where my concept of Governance Theatre becomes relevant. Governance Theatre describes the distance between the appearance of accountability and its actual exercise. Institutions become exceptionally skilled at explaining crises, managing public perceptions and celebrating favourable outcomes without necessarily correcting the weaknesses that produced those crises.
A deadline approaches. Something goes wrong. Lawyers intervene. A favourable judgment follows. Political leaders celebrate.
But what happens to the underlying failure?
A constitutional victory can resolve a legal dispute without resolving the governance weaknesses that made the dispute necessary.
That distinction should concern every South African.
The secretary-general’s responsibility cannot end with relief
The emotional scenes involving ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula following the judgment illustrated the considerable political pressure surrounding the litigation. His reaction deserves compassion rather than ridicule.
But leadership accountability cannot depend on whether the outcome produces tears of relief or disappointment.
The office of secretary-general occupies a central position in the ANC’s organisational coordination and administration. This does not mean Mbalula personally caused the nomination problem. No such conclusion should be reached without evidence. It does mean that the party’s leadership should ensure that the failure is properly examined and that responsibility is established through a credible process.
Consider a harder question. Had the Constitutional Court dismissed the ANC’s appeal, would the party have demanded accountability from those responsible for the nomination process? If so, why should a favourable judgment make that accountability unnecessary?
The purpose of accountability is not to identify a convenient individual to blame. It is to determine whether responsibilities were properly allocated, internal controls were effective and leadership responded appropriately when difficulties arose.
An organisation that demands accountability only after defeat is not practising governance. It is practising political damage control.
Campaigning harder is not the same as governing better
Following the ruling, the ANC announced that it would mobilise additional organisational resources and intensify campaigning in the affected municipalities. That is an understandable political response, particularly given the limited time remaining before the 4 November elections.
But mobilising an election campaign and correcting institutional weaknesses are two fundamentally different responsibilities.
The first seeks votes. The second seeks credibility.
Residents facing persistent water interruptions, failing sanitation systems or deteriorating roads are unlikely to measure the ANC’s success by the number of candidates restored to the ballot. Their concerns are considerably more immediate.
Will their water supply improve? Will municipal funds be managed responsibly? Will councillors attend community meetings? Will service delivery commitments translate into measurable improvements?
The ANC should require its reinstated candidates to publish credible local governance commitments, identifying their municipalities’ most pressing problems, realistic priorities for their first year and mechanisms through which residents can monitor performance. These commitments should be linked to municipal powers, available budgets and existing development plans.
Where promises cannot be financed, candidates should explain the constraints rather than manufacture expectations. Where councillors fail to perform, consequences should follow.
South Africans do not need another demonstration that political parties know how to win elections. They need evidence that those parties know how to govern after winning them.
The ANC must confront its own contradictions
The ANC’s greatest challenge may not be the opposition parties contesting the November elections. It may be the growing distance between its historical identity as a liberation movement and the contemporary expectations placed upon it as a governing institution.
Its contribution to South Africa’s democratic transition remains significant. But historical legitimacy cannot permanently substitute for present competence.
The 2024 national election, in which the ANC lost its outright parliamentary majority for the first time since 1994, demonstrated that voters can respect a party’s historical contribution while withdrawing their electoral support. That lesson should not be forgotten.
The Constitutional Court has restored the ANC’s opportunity to compete. It has not reversed the political reality that public confidence must increasingly be earned through performance.
The party must therefore move beyond the language of renewal and demonstrate what renewal means in practice. An independent review of the nomination process, clear responsibility for critical administrative functions, stronger verification controls and transparent corrective measures would be a meaningful beginning.
These are ordinary governance expectations, not extraordinary demands.
Coalition politics must be bigger than political grievances
The dispute has also exposed tensions within the Government of National Unity.
Following the ruling, Mbalula publicly questioned the ANC’s relationship with the Democratic Alliance, which had opposed its appeal. But a political call to reconsider a coalition relationship should not be confused with a formal decision to terminate that arrangement.
More fundamentally, coalition partners must be able to disagree over constitutional interpretation without treating every disagreement as political betrayal.
The ANC was entitled to pursue its legal remedy. The DA was entitled to advance its opposing argument. The Constitutional Court was responsible for determining the dispute. The test of political maturity is whether parties can respect that outcome while continuing to discharge their governing responsibilities.
South Africans cannot afford a government in which political disagreements repeatedly threaten the cooperation required to address unemployment, economic stagnation and institutional decline.
The judgment that matters most is still ahead
The ANC now has a choice.
It can treat the Constitutional Court judgment as the conclusion of an embarrassing episode, celebrate the reinstatement of its candidates and return to familiar campaign promises. Or it can use the experience to demonstrate that institutional accountability and political victory are not mutually exclusive.
The Electoral Commission should likewise review the reliability, accessibility and auditability of its electronic nomination system, guided by the Court’s full reasons once available. The objective should be an electoral process that is fair, predictable and accessible to every qualifying political party.
For the ANC, however, the responsibility goes deeper. The party must demonstrate that it understands the difference between being legally entitled to contest an election and being politically deserving of public trust.
No court can order an organisation to become competent, ethical or responsive. Those qualities must be demonstrated through conduct.
The danger of Governance Theatre is that institutions become so absorbed in celebrating their survival that they neglect to examine why their survival was threatened in the first place. The ANC must resist that temptation.
The Constitutional Court has restored the ANC’s place on the ballot. But it has not restored the public’s trust. That responsibility remains with the party itself.
And when South Africans vote on 4 November, they will not be deciding whether the ANC was legally entitled to contest the election. They will be deciding whether its candidates deserve the responsibility of governing their communities.
The judges have given the ANC another opportunity to compete. The voters are under no obligation to rescue it from the consequences of its own performance.
Nyaniso Qwesha is a political commentator
The views expressed do not not necessarily reflect those of IOL