The Electoral Court has ruled against the Democratic Alliance in its bid to strike four parties off the municipal ballot over single-candidate lists, finding that the party failed to substantiate its central allegation of bad faith. The judgment, delivered on Friday by acting judge Nobahle Mangcu-Lockwood, closes a legal challenge that had sought to police how rival parties compile their proportional representation candidate lists ahead of the upcoming municipal election.
At the heart of the dispute was a compliance question: whether parties that nominated only one name on their PR lists had acted within the rules. The court found they had. It accepted the explanations offered by ActionSA, the Good Party and the Economic Freedom Fighters for naming a single candidate each, and it noted the Electoral Commission’s observation that political parties have followed this practice since 2011. On that basis, the court held that the impugned lists were submitted in accordance with the legislation, and that no violation of the Constitution could be inferred from them.
The DA’s case rested on an accountability argument. The party contended that the four respondents, which included the MK Party alongside the EFF, ActionSA and Good, could not genuinely believe they would win only a single seat in every municipality where they had nominated a single candidate. It argued that the parties were exploiting legal provisions that allow party lists to be supplemented after the election, in order to conceal their candidates from voters who have a right to know for whom they are casting their ballots.
That argument did not survive the court’s scrutiny. The judgment stated plainly that the DA had not made out a factual case to support its claim that the four parties acted in bad faith. The finding shifts the burden back onto the challenger: allegations of improper motive, the ruling indicates, require evidentiary support, not merely inference from the shape of a candidate list.
The court also declined to reach the deeper constitutional question the DA had raised about the supplementation provisions themselves. It held that this juncture was not the appropriate one to determine whether those provisions are constitutionally sound. Judge Mangcu-Lockwood’s reasoning addressed the stakes directly: “The effect of the relief sought under this heading would have a profound impact on the design of the electoral system for the municipal councils. A matter of such fundamental significance needs careful handling, not a rushed jolt.”
Oversight of the electoral framework, the judgment suggests, is a task that belongs to a deliberate process rather than to emergency relief on the eve of a poll. The court’s refusal to rule on the constitutionality of the supplementation provisions leaves that design question open, but removes it from the current election cycle.
A further consideration weighed against the DA was its own conduct. The court noted that the party is itself contesting the elections, and that it had previously indulged in the very practice it now complained about. Changing the rules in the middle of the game, the judgment observed, may have unfair consequences. That point carried particular weight in a case premised on enforcing consistent standards across all contestants.
The outcome leaves the commission’s administrative position intact. Parties that submitted single-name PR lists did so, in the court’s view, in compliance with the applicable legislation, and the Electoral Commission’s long-standing tolerance of the practice since 2011 stands unchallenged for now. Parties remain free, under the existing framework, to supplement their lists after the election.
The ruling represents a setback for the DA’s attempt to use the courts to reshape electoral conduct before voters go to the polls. Its contention that single-candidate lists undermine transparency was not rejected on principle, but on footing: the court found the factual basis for bad faith absent, the lists lawful, and the constitutional question premature. For the parties accused of subverting electoral laws, the judgment functions as an effective clearance; for the broader debate over how party lists may be supplemented, the court has signalled only that such a question, if pressed, must be handled with care rather than haste.