ANC deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte has clarified why the governing party made an about-turn on its application to the Electoral Court to ask for more time to field candidates.
Addressing the media on the outcomes of ANC lekgotla, Duarte said the party had withdrawn its application against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) after it realised the commission could not be blamed for the ANC’s failure to register its candidates on time for the local government elections.
“The reason we withdrew our legal case was because we sat down and we went through [the lists] manually, one at a time, to see what happened. It was the only way we could say whatever happens we cannot blame the IEC systems because we made mistakes. We do know in two instances when we were late,” she said.
Duarte also rejected claims that the ANC received preferential treatment from the electoral commission, saying the party did not have the power to influence the IEC.
“We reject the accusation being made that the ANC tried to influence the IEC or the Constitutional Court in any way. We did not and we cannot. We met yesterday with all other political parties in the party liaison committee for the first time with the IEC,” said Duarte.
“We understood and accepted the position they emerged with that you cannot reopen voter registration without the concomitant reopening and enabling people to run as candidates because any person who registers as a voter is eligible to run as a candidate.”
The IEC handed the ANC a lifeline on Monday after it reopened the registration process for candidates.
The ruling party missed the deadline to field all its candidates in more than 30% of municipalities.
The IEC said on Monday that by virtue of the Constitutional Court order that there should be another voter registration weekend, it will reopen the candidate registration process.
Those who register during the voter registration weekend could want to contest municipalities and not reopening candidate registration would be unfair, it said.
Meanwhile, the DA applied to the Constitutional Court to set aside the IEC’s decision to reopen the candidate nomination process for the 2021 local government elections.
The DA said the decision was unconstitutional and unlawful.
- Inside Politics