Following a spectacular bungle with the registration of its election lists in Nelson Mandela Bay, ANC’s regional bosses are on a mission to find out who was responsible for costing them a ward in Uitenhage’s KwaNobuhle.
They are exploring the legal route to see if they can take on the Electoral Commission (IEC) for the duplication of names on the lists, as well as the Ward 43 debacle where a candidate’s name was absent from the list.
Regional task team (RTT) coordinator Bheza Ntshona said all the ANC’s lists had been coordinated at a provincial and national level and submitted on a new online system. “We had no access related to the technical processes,” he said.
“With regard to the Ward 43 matter, the person who was put on the list was never on any of our lists. He is on the United Front’s list.
“So, we were also surprised to have that name in that ward. We are trying to follow up with the IEC on that.
“We are exploring the legal route to see how best to take this forward,” Ntshona said.
On the final list released by the IEC this week, there was no candidate name for Ward 43.
While ANC regional list committee member Mtwabo Ndube said the ANC’s regional leaders were planning to take the IEC to court, Ntshona insisted that they first wanted to explore everything before taking the issue forward.
Ndube said: “Generally, there are only a few wards where there are problems here, which we are going to challenge through the courts. We are busy with that now.
“There are wards where names have been duplicated, or our names are missing. We are pursuing that through the Electoral Court.
“[On Thursday], we met the legal teams to advise us how it can be done. The RTT is taking it on.
“Even those whose names we want to change, we are still pursuing that,” Ndube said.
Not only was a candidate for Ward 43 – currently held by the ANC – absent from the list released by the IEC this week, three candidates’ names are put down to contest two wards each.
This means that should each of the three win both wards where they are fielded, by-elections would have to be held in three wards soon after the August 3 elections.
Morgan Tshaka is contesting wards 6 (Fairview, Newton Park) and 54 (Motherwell), Duane Adams has been fielded in wards 11 (Schauderville) and 14 (New Brighton), and Lunga Nombexeza is the candidate for Ward 40 (Kuyga) and Ward 50 (KwaLanga).
Four of those wards are currently controlled by the ANC, while the other two are DA wards.
The ANC’s lists have been at the centre of a number of protests in recent weeks, with widespread anger among party members who say candidates have been imposed on residents.
However, it is too late to do anything about it now as the IEC’s deadline for the submission of lists was June 2.
