IEC receives over 59 000 names of candidates for local elections
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has received a total of 59 272 candidates from 276 political parties ahead of the municipal elections.
These candidates are contesting 10 285 municipal seats.
A total of 944 are independent candidates.
The IEC briefed the media on Tuesday after the previous days’ deadline for registration of candidates.
The deadline was 5 pm but was subsequently extended to 9 pm.
Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo said the deadline was extended after leaders of several political parties approached him for an extension.
He said the commission consulted with several parties and was able to extend the deadline by four hours.
"We could not accede to extending the deadline by a few days, we could only accommodate parties by extending to four hours and this was to the benefit of all parties.”
Seventy-four candidates who were added to the system after 9 pm will not be considered, according to Mamabolo.
On Monday, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema alleged that the system was being manipulated as parties could still enroll candidates after the deadline.
The @IECSouthAfrica system of registering candidates is still open 25 minutes after the closing time. Someone is manipulating the system, stop this nonsense.
— Julius Sello Malema (@Julius_S_Malema) August 23, 2021
But Mamabolo said the system was only open for an internal transfer of the names from one platform to another.
"In the interest of sound election management practice, candidates whose details were intervened after the deadline of 9pm cannot and will not be accepted, but candidates captured before and up to 9pm will be taken as duly submitted. This is facilitated through the date and time stamp which is a component of our online candidate nomination system," he said
He said the IEC aims to complete the capturing process by end of business day on Tuesday.
The commission says it plans to certify and published the final names by September.
