MEDIA RELEASE 

2026-10-15

SUMMARY: The Labour Party of South Africa (Labour Party) condemns the Constitutional Court’s majority order directing the IEC to include 181 ANC candidates on the ballots in six municipalities. The Party recalls its own 2024 election dispute, when problems with the IEC’s online nomination system prevented it from completing its submissions and left it unable to contest nationally and provincially in North West, Gauteng, Limpopo and the Northern Cape, despite signatures and office-bearer details having been uploaded.

The Constitutional Court today set aside the Electoral Court’s order and directed the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to take the necessary steps to include the ANC’s candidate lists and ward nominations for six municipalities on the ballot for the 4 November 2026 elections. The order was made by a majority, and the Court’s reasons are awaited. 

“The ANC has secured the reinstatement of 181 candidates. In 2024, the Labour Party was shut out of the national and provincial contests after problems with the IEC’s online nomination system prevented it from completing its submission. The contrast is stark. The working class has every right to ask why one party received relief while another was left to bear the full consequences”, said Joseph Mathunjwa, interim President of the Labour Party. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa is both President of the Republic and President of the ANC. Under section 174(4) of the Constitution, the President appoints Constitutional Court judges after consulting the Chief Justice and leaders of parties represented in the National Assembly, from a list prepared through the Judicial Service Commission process. 

“When the head of the ANC is also the constitutional office-bearer who appoints judges to the highest court, people will scrutinise every judgment involving the ANC through that political reality. We make no allegation that any judge was influenced in this case. But let us be blunt: our country has become a banana republic. It has become a failed state where corruption is the new normal. That is the devastating perception this judgment has created, and the Court’s reasons must show that justice is applied equally to all”, Mathunjwa said. 

In 2024, the Labour Party said it had gathered 51 542 signatures, enough to contest nationally and in North West, Gauteng, Limpopo and the Northern Cape, but was unable to complete its submissions by the deadline after encountering problems with the IEC’s online nomination system and being unable to hit the very same “Submit as final” button that the ANC has now been vindicated for. 

“The simple fact is that if the system was not glitching and did not have this button, we would also have been in Parliament today. We even obtained the expert report of a professor from Wits to show that the IEC’s systems were not fit for purpose, but even that didn’t help”, Mathunjwa explained. 

In May 2024, Professor Rennie Naidoo of the University of the Witwatersrand assessed the IEC’s online nomination system, examining its interface design, performance during peak use, and alternative channels and contingency arrangements. He concluded that, in light of the difficulties experienced by the Labour Party and other parties, the system did not meet the standards expected of one used to manage a national election. 

“We will not soften the truth: the Labour Party was robbed of its opportunity to contest nationally and in four provinces. The Party’s members and supporters were also denied their constitutional right to participate in those contests, while today this same Court has granted relief to others. The ANC has now won relief that the Labour Party was denied. This unequal treatment further damages confidence in an already compromised electoral democracy. We will consult, we will challenge, and we will keep demanding one law and one standard for every political formation”, he said. 

The Labour Party will consult its structures and legal team to consider possible ways of addressing the ruling and its implications. The IEC has said that it will reprint ballots where necessary to comply with the Court’s order. 

“Now we hear that reprinting the ballots could cost R790 million – almost a billion – to please the ruling party, at a time when the tax base is already badly eroded. We already carry a public debt burden measured in trillions. That money could have provided relief to millions of suffering South Africans. How many boreholes could have been sunk? How many toilets could have been built? How many bridges could have been constructed to help children on their journey to education”, Mathunjwa concluded. 

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