Are ActionSA, EFF, MK and GOOD Bending the Rules?

Statement by Ashor Sarupen – DA Federal Council Chairperson:

The DA has filed an urgent application in the Electoral Court, against ActionSA, the EFF, the MK Party and GOOD, for their attempt to bend the laws governing candidate lists in this year’s Local Government Election.

The DA’s papers challenge the deliberate submission of proportional representation lists with only one name on them, by ActionSA, the EFF, MK and GOOD ahead of the 2026 Local Government Elections, a decision we view as deliberately concealing their candidates from voters.

They are bending the rules, and attempting to mislead voters, by misinterpreting the law which allows the IEC to request a party to submit extra names after an election if that party wins more seats than they have candidates on their PR list.

The principle at stake is so fundamental that it cannot go unchallenged: parties are required to present voters with the names of their candidates before voters go into a voting booth to choose their political parties, not after the votes have been counted.

The courts have consistently held that voters’ rights to information ahead of voting is sacrosanct, requiring the disclosure of party political funding and other matters. The DA will stand up for this principle, on behalf of voters who should not be hoodwinked by this tactic from ActionSA, the EFF, MK or GOOD.

The law in question was not crafted to allow parties to hide or conceal their candidates from voters and wait for the election to be done before submitting names to the IEC. Doing this is a perversion of the very meaning of a candidate election, and is deeply disrespectful to South African voters.

The law was only intended to cover situations where parties make entirely unexpected and fortuitous surges in support and end up winning a few more PR seats than their lists could cover before the election.

The EFF is contesting almost every ward in South Africa, with thousands of individual ward candidates, while submitting just one PR candidate in every municipality.

ActionSA has nominated more than 2,000 individual ward candidates while submitting one-person PR lists in virtually every municipality it contests. In Johannesburg, where it currently has dozens of PR councillors, it has submitted just one PR candidate.

MK has similarly fielded candidates across thousands of wards while submitting one-person PR lists.

GOOD has done the same in municipalities where it already holds multiple PR seats.

The scale and uniformity of this practice is precisely why the DA has approached the Electoral Court.

Most revealingly, ActionSA has publicly acknowledged that its approach was deliberate: it submitted one name so that it could supplement its list after discovering how many seats it had won. ActionSA has even said it would use the seats it attains as rewards for party members who work hard during the election campaign, putting the party ahead of residents and voters again.

ActionSA, the EFF, the MK Party and GOOD are in the midst of bending the law of candidate nominations to hide their councillor candidates from voters, and the DA is approaching the Court to stand up for voters rights to know.

The question now before the Electoral Court is whether the topping-up of lists after seat calculations can deliberately be used as an electoral strategy to avoid identifying candidates before voters get to vote.

The DA’s case is that it cannot be done that way, because these parties would be hiding their candidates from voters.

The DA has asked the Electoral Court to determine the legality and constitutionality of this practice, and we have asked the Court to grant appropriate relief.

This is particularly important after the ANC was excluded from contesting in various municipalities after failing to submit its lists on time. If the ANC engaged in the same willful deception of voters and only submitted one name on the list, it would be on the ballot.

Voters must be presented the candidates they are voting for. Elections cannot become games of slight-of-hand.

The ballot box must determine which candidates are elected.