The ANC says it will field 4 488 ward councillor candidates and 6 000 proportional-representation (PR) candidates in the 4 November local government elections, as its National Executive Committee (NEC) races to finalise and ratify the lists ahead of Friday’s Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) deadline.
The ANC has convened a second special NEC meeting in less than 48 hours as it works against time to finalise its councillor and mayoral nomination lists.
The meeting, being held at the Birchwood Hotel and OR Tambo Conference Centre in Boksburg, was called to consider final matters about the party’s candidate list process ahead of the elections.
ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said the meeting had been convened specifically to ratify the lists before they are submitted to the IEC.
“As you are well aware, the Special National Executive Committee of the ANC is currently underway,” Bhengu-Motsiri said.
“And this meeting is convened solely for the purposes of ratifying the ANC candidates list ahead of the Secretary-General pressing the button and submitting the ANC list to the Independent Electoral Committee, whose deadline is tomorrow.”
Bhengu-Motsiri said the NEC’s involvement was required by the ANC’s constitution, with the body serving as the organisation’s highest decision-making structure between conferences.
She said the party had 4 488 ward councillor candidates ready to contest the elections, alongside 6 000 PR councillor candidates.
“If you look at those figures, it will show you that we are running, indeed we are running a wall-to-wall campaign, a VD-to-VD campaign,” she said.
“We are confident that it will become clear when we go to the ground following this meeting that ratifies the list that we are present in every municipality, in every district.”
The NEC is also considering the balance and composition of the lists, including the representation of women and young people.
“We are currently looking at how the balance looks like in terms of gender representation,” Bhengu-Motsiri said.
She said the party was focused on ensuring “meaningful, substantive and descriptive representation” of women, as well as substantive representation of young people.
The NEC had already considered lists from several provinces, including Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, with the process continuing through the remaining provinces.
“We anticipate that come the last province where we have a broader discussion that indeed our list will meet the test, and the test is contained in the rules by the Electoral Committee of the ANC and the candidate selection guidelines,” she said.
The finalisation comes after the ANC spent weeks conducting its internal candidate-selection process, including interviews and vetting of prospective councillors and mayoral candidates.
The process has also been accompanied by disputes and objections in some regions, with the party having established mechanisms to deal with challenges to candidate selections.
Bhengu-Motsiri said disputes would be handled through those existing structures.
“The ANC has a very well established dispute resolution mechanism and so where that happens it will be subjected to that process,” she said.
She expressed confidence in the work done by ANC branches and communities during the selection process.
“But we are quite happy with the work that our branches have done and the community that has been hugely considered and we look forward to fighting the election,” she said.
With the IEC deadline looming on Friday, 28 August, the ANC is now working to ensure that the final candidates are loaded onto the commission’s system.
Asked whether the party would meet the 5pm Friday deadline, Bhengu-Motsiri said preparations were already well advanced.
“Yes,” she said.
“As I indicate, we are looking at perhaps now maybe we are on the fifth or sixth province, loading our candidates on the IEC roll.”
She said the process was expected to reach its final stage on Thursday, leaving ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula to formally submit the completed list.
“By this afternoon, hopefully, we will just be waiting for the Secretary-General to press the button,” Bhengu-Motsiri said.
The finalisation of the lists marks a crucial stage in the ANC’s preparations for the November elections, with the party seeking to contest every municipality while balancing its candidate lists against its internal rules and requirements on representation and competence.