ANC’s ‘flimsy excuse’ for missing deadline an attempt to hide party divisions

The ANC is in a mess and its failure to submit its candidates timeously, citing technical glitches, is a flimsy excuse exposing a party in disarray, says an expert.

Political analyst Sanusha Naidu said ANC citing a technical glitch for not registering some of its candidates for the municipal elections was not a viable argument.

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She said the governing party may be trying to hide serious infighting between Luthuli House and its structures around candidate nominations.

The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) should stand its ground and not allow itself to fall into the trap and undermine its own rules, otherwise its independence would be questioned, she added.

This after the ANC took legal action to challenge the IEC in the Electoral Court to force the commission to reopen registration for candidates registration, claiming it encountered technical glitches.

Acting ANC secretary-general Jessie Duarte said the IEC system froze while the party was submitting its list during last week’s Monday’s deadline.

However, some analysts said parties had the option to submit the names manually to the IEC.

Most opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA), Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), National Freedom Party (NFP) and Congress of the People opposed the ANC move. Both the DA and EFF planned to submit opposing applications against it.

The NFP experienced a similar situation when it missed the deadline to pay deposit of R400 000 to contest the 2016 local government elections and got disqualified by the IEC.

The Electoral Court further ruled against its appeal. So far, only Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement has offered to side with the ANC by joining the matter as friends of the court. UDM also struggled to submit its candidates ahead of the deadline due to delays in compiling its candidate list.

Naidu said the ANC application was haphazard and signified that the party was in a complete mess.

“The problem is that the ANC overwhelms itself and by doing so it overwhelms the system. So the technical glitch is not a viable argument,” Naidu said.

Only two parties the ANC and EFF were fielding candidates or contesting wards countrywide, but EFF had managed to submit timeously.

If the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of the IEC for the elections to be postponed, then it was a free pass for the ANC and for the IEC.”

– ericn@citizen.co.za