LOCAL ELECTIONS 2026: Mbalula fires DA warning after ANC’s ConCourt victory — ‘Nothing binds us forever’

ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula broke down in tears on Thursday, 15 October, after the Constitutional Court upheld the party’s appeal in a case that will see 181 of its candidates return to the ballot for the upcoming local government elections.

Mbalula, who in recent weeks faced criticism over the ANC’s failure to complete the submission of the candidates, including from members of his own party, was visibly emotional and cried while addressing journalists and ANC members shortly after the judgment.

He said the court battle had weighed heavily on him.

“That gave me sleepless nights, and it took its toll on me.”

At the heart of the case was whether the ANC’s failure to click the Electoral Commission of SA’s (IEC’s) “Submit as Final” button was enough to keep its candidates off the ballot. The party had completed the nomination forms, uploaded the required documents and paid its deposits before the deadline, but did not complete the final step on the IEC’s online system in six municipalities.  

It therefore argued that the software button was a feature of the IEC’s system and not a requirement contained in electoral law, while the IEC maintained that it was necessary to confirm that a party’s candidate lists were final.

The Constitutional Court, by majority, upheld the ANC’s appeal against an Electoral Court decision that had excluded the candidates. The court has not yet given its reasons for upholding the appeal, meaning it is not yet clear which of the ANC’s arguments the majority accepted, or what the judgment could mean for candidates from other political parties who were in a similar position.

ANC turns to DA

Mbalula also turned his attention to the DA, which had fiercely opposed the ANC’s case, saying that his party would now have to discuss its relationship with the DA in the Government of National Unity (GNU).

“There are matters, comrades, that this movement will now have to sit down and discuss, and one of those matters is our partners in the Government of National Unity, and that is the DA. We must review the DA in the GNU,” Mbalula said.

He said the proposed review should not be seen as an attempt to blackmail the DA because it had taken a different position to the ANC.

“It’s not a blackmail to anyone. It’s a question of saying: ‘Who are these people?’ If they now even challenge what we have signed in the statement of intent, and we are still with them in the Government of National Unity.

“And these are the hard questions we have to ask ourselves, unfortunately, but we don’t seek to run over partners simply because they have a different opinion. But what we have agreed to, as a statement of intent, if any one of us works against it, that Parliament is too big. We must look for other partners. And there’s nothing that binds us forever with the DA, in the Government of National Unity.”

DA hits back

The DA said it respected the Constitutional Court’s decision, but raised concerns about what the ruling could mean for complying with IEC deadlines and requirements.

DA Federal Council Chairperson Ashor Sarupen said the courts had until now required strict compliance with electoral deadlines.

“The ANC has now succeeded in court to undoing their own failure to submit candidate lists in six municipalities. However, this will not change their electoral fortunes. The ANC is in terminal decline, and across South Africa its support is at record lows.”

Sarupen also responded to Mbalula’s call for the ANC to review its relationship with the DA in the GNU, saying the party would continue to defend what it regarded as the equal application of the law.

“We note Fikile Mbalula’s threats about the GNU. The reality is that the DA is not in the GNU to get along, and we will vigorously defend the rule of law and the equal application of the law. At present, we are completely focused on winning in towns and cities, and removing the ANC because they have destroyed those municipalities,” Sarupen said.

The arguments against the ANC

The DA had argued, quite extensively, against the ANC’s attempt to overturn the Electoral Court ruling, going as far as warning that a decision in favour of the ANC would cause absolute chaos and not render the elections free and fair. 

Advocate Michael Bishop, for the DA, told the Constitutional Court that if uploading candidate information without clicking “Submit as Final” was legally sufficient, the same principle would have to apply to all political parties in the same position.

“If the ANC is correct and the law is that if you merely provided the information, you didn’t push Submit as Final, you must be on the ballot, you are contesting the election, it would not be a free and fair election unless it applied to all parties in the same position. That would not be rigid adherence to the law,” Bishop argued.

The ANC, however, argued that it was not asking for special treatment or extra time to complete its submissions. Its counsel, Advocate Daniel Berger, argued that the requirement to click the button was not contained in electoral legislation or regulations, and was instead a function of the IEC’s online system.

“The ANC asks for no indulgence and no special treatment contrary to what the commission and the DA say in their affidavits. The ANC seeks no condonation, no extra time nor to place any extra information before the commission.

“The ANC only asks to have its compliance judged according to the law, properly interpreted. The alarm raised by the commission and the DA that a finding in favour of the ANC would render next month’s elections not free and not fair is no more than a phantom.”

Judges questioned impact on voters

During arguments on Monday, some Constitutional Court justices questioned whether voters could lose their preferred candidates because a party had failed to press a button that was not expressly provided for in legislation.

Justice Rammaka Mathopo posed a scenario in which the IEC had received the documents and knew that a community intended to contest the election through a particular candidate.

He questioned whether that community could then be told: “You are going to be disenfranchised because somebody forgot to press the button.”

“Why is my right now diluted by the software button?” Mathopo asked.

Justice Kate Savage, however, questioned why the ANC had failed to complete a process it knew about and had followed elsewhere, particularly as it had done so since 2016 when the system was first implemented.

She described it as “quite extraordinary” that the ANC had submitted its lists as final across the country but failed to do so in the affected municipalities, saying there appeared to be little explanation “other than that it’s grossly negligent”.

The ruling affects 181 ANC candidates – 130 proportional representation candidates and 51 ward candidates. They are from six municipalities: Ngquza Hill, Port St Johns, Walter Sisulu and Sundays River Valley in the Eastern Cape, uMshwathi in KwaZulu-Natal and Mangaung in the Free State.

The Constitutional Court ordered the IEC to take the necessary steps to include the affected ANC candidates and lists in the elections. DM