The South African Communist Party (SACP) and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) may emerge as the primary beneficiaries of the African National Congress’s (ANC) failure to submit candidate lists to the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) across four key Eastern Cape municipalities.
The Electoral Court this week dismissed an application by the ANC in which it argued that technical glitches in the IEC’s system resulted in its list not being submitted before the August 28 deadline.
Although the ANC has indicated plans to appeal, the current ruling leaves the party off the ballot in its traditional strongholds of Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, where both ward and proportional representation (PR) lists were missed. In the Sundays River Valley and Walter Sisulu municipalities, the party omitted its PR candidate lists.
The administrative crisis extends beyond the Eastern Cape, with the ANC also failing to submit PR lists in KwaZulu-Natal’s uMshwathi Local Municipality and the Free State’s Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality.
By virtue of their current public political standing, there is a view that the ANC’s disastrous administrative errors are expected to benefit the DA and the EFF in these municipalities.
However, political analyst Professor Lesiba Teffo said the picture was different in the Eastern Cape as he did not see the DA and EFF winning a single municipality in these villages because many people still decide their political affiliation based on race, ethnicity, regional, civic or personality preferences.
Teffo argued that, instead, the ANC’s problems in the province present the party’s tripartite alliance partner, the SACP, with an opportunity to perform well and seize these currently ANC-controlled municipalities.
He said given the decades-long historical relationship between the ANC and SACP and that members often hold dual membership of the two parties, the SACP stands to benefit more than any other political party.
While the SACP has previously contested elections on its own, the November 4 election marks the first time that the party will field candidates across the country and at scale.
“Many ANC members are equally SACP members, so in the absence of the ANC on the ballot papers, an ANC member is most likely to cast his or her vote for the SACP. The politics of race, tribalism and regionalism should not be underestimated; therefore, parties like the DA and EFF are unlikely to benefit from the ANC’s demise in the rural parts of the Eastern Cape,” Teffo argued.
He added that the race factor would be a challenge for the DA to penetrate rural villages, while regionalism and tribalism would be a hindrance to the EFF.
He also suggested that the election may see the revival of Bantu Holomisa’s UDM and civic organisations in the Eastern Cape.
Another political analyst, Professor Musa Xulu, agreed that the UDM stands a good chance to gain votes in the affected municipalities.
He added that the ANC was unlikely to encourage its members to vote for the SACP since that would boost the SACP’s resources ahead of the 2029 general election.
Apart from the six municipalities, the ANC is facing a legal challenge from five branches in the Mthatha-based King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality (KSD). The disgruntled members, through their attorneys, wrote to Luthuli House to challenge the submission of candidates to the IEC who they argued were not approved of by the branches and communities.
The Eastern Cape ANC has been plagued by both political and administrative challenges since the beginning of the year. The party’s provincial elective conference was interrupted at the 11th hour when disgruntled members obtained a court order to halt the proceedings.
The members who were aligned to provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi cited the manipulation of delegates at the branch and regional levels. Citing the expiry of the term of office of the provincial executive committee (PEC), Luthuli House appointed a provincial task team. This was again challenged by the disgruntled group, which forced Luthuli House to reinstate the disbanded PEC just weeks prior to the IEC candidate submission deadline.
The failure to meet the deadline has led to a blame game between Luthuli House and the provincial leadership, particularly secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and Ngcukayitobi.
The provincial secretary has served Mbalula with a lawyer’s letter demanding that he retract his public comments where he blamed him for the candidate registration blunder.
In a letter seen by The National, a law firm acting for Ngcukayitobi demanded that Mbalula retract his comments by September 22.
The letter accused Mbalula of making false claims that Ngcukayitobi was the “cause of the widely publicised and embarrassing failure by the ANC to submit all its candidate lists in the forthcoming local government elections, with specific reference to municipalities situated in the Eastern Cape”.
Mbalula has not responded to a request for comment on this issue by the time of publication.
willem.phungula@nationalmg.co.za