South Africa's election body lets 32 more parties onto the ballot after the ANC ruling
After the Constitutional Court ordered 181 ANC candidates restored, the IEC extended the same relief to parties in the same position. The 4 November vote goes ahead as planned.
Pretoria — South Africa's Electoral Commission (IEC) says 32 political parties that were in the same position as the ANC will also be allowed to field candidates in the local government elections, following a Constitutional Court ruling, SAnews reports.
What the court ordered
The Constitutional Court directed the IEC to include 181 ANC candidates (51 ward and 130 proportional representation candidates) in six municipalities.
Relief for other parties
The IEC resolved that 32 similarly placed parties "must be deemed to have lawfully submitted their candidates". They had nominated compliant candidates and paid their deposits but had not submitted final lists, and between them intended to contest 121 municipalities.
- The IEC will contact each party to confirm that it still wants to take part.
- Those that do can complete their nominations and, where needed, replace candidates whose names appear on more than one list.
- Thirteen other parties still did not qualify, because they had not paid deposits or did not meet the voters' roll requirement.
The ballots
The IEC must produce 33 million ballots. Twenty-seven million were already printed; it had held back the 6.6 million for the six affected municipalities until the court ruled, so no money was wasted.
IEC chairperson Mosotho Moepya said the election date of 4 November is not expected to change, but that preparations must now be completed in a very short time.
Source: SAnews, IEC gives similarly affected political parties relief after Constitutional Court ruling, 16 October 2026.
