The ANC provincial executive committee is seeking legal opinion in an attempt to challenge the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) refusal to correct the details of ward candidates, which the party claims were incorrect.
The ANC claims the names were registered incorrectly by the IEC and that they were not the candidates nominated by branches.
Affected areas include Buffalo City’s Ward 27 (Mzamomhle) and Ward 28 (Beacon Bay), a constituency of Finance Minister and ANC national executive committee member Pravin Gordhan, where the candidates have been swopped around.
The Daily Dispatch understands that Gordhan, who is expected to be in East London today, will meet his constituency to discuss the matter.
BCM’s Ward 23 was another hotspot, where a candidate who topped the list during the nomination process was replaced by the second candidate in the IEC online registration.
The discrepancies were as a result of incorrect ID numbers submitted by the ANC to the IEC.
The province suspects manipulation or an error which could have happened when branches, regions and the province made submissions to Luthuli House.
ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane told the Daily Dispatch yesterday that the province was speaking with lawyers.
“We are consulting now. Anytime we are given a green light — our bone of contention is that had we submitted our list manually the IEC would, during capturing, have seen that the names were not correlating with the ID as it used to do and would have called us to say come and correct this bring an ID copy. But, the online system assumes that the ID correlates with the name.
“If that’s the case, we are saying there must be recourse. We are not blaming the IEC because we supplied the names, but we are saying at least there must be recourse to correct this because this can plunge our country into a crisis.”
He said the IEC must be flexible enough to allow ID numbers to be corrected.
Mabuyane said the party would act against those who could be found to have manipulated the lists.
“The ANC has taken a very hard stance on any matter of list manipulation or any attempt that seeks to undermine the ANC’s internal processes and guidelines.
“We cannot allow a situation where people play around.”
Responses to requests for comment from the national and provincial IEC offices had not been received at the time of writing.
ANC bid to challenge IEC on incorrect candidate details
The ANC claims the names were registered incorrectly by the IEC and that they were not the candidates nominated by branches.
Affected areas include Buffalo City’s Ward 27 (Mzamomhle) and Ward 28 (Beacon Bay), a constituency of Finance Minister and ANC national executive committee member Pravin Gordhan, where the candidates have been swopped around.
The Daily Dispatch understands that Gordhan, who is expected to be in East London today, will meet his constituency to discuss the matter.
BCM’s Ward 23 was another hotspot, where a candidate who topped the list during the nomination process was replaced by the second candidate in the IEC online registration.
The discrepancies were as a result of incorrect ID numbers submitted by the ANC to the IEC.
The province suspects manipulation or an error which could have happened when branches, regions and the province made submissions to Luthuli House.
ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane told the Daily Dispatch yesterday that the province was speaking with lawyers.
“We are consulting now. Anytime we are given a green light — our bone of contention is that had we submitted our list manually the IEC would, during capturing, have seen that the names were not correlating with the ID as it used to do and would have called us to say come and correct this bring an ID copy. But, the online system assumes that the ID correlates with the name.
“If that’s the case, we are saying there must be recourse. We are not blaming the IEC because we supplied the names, but we are saying at least there must be recourse to correct this because this can plunge our country into a crisis.”
He said the IEC must be flexible enough to allow ID numbers to be corrected.
Mabuyane said the party would act against those who could be found to have manipulated the lists.
“The ANC has taken a very hard stance on any matter of list manipulation or any attempt that seeks to undermine the ANC’s internal processes and guidelines.
“We cannot allow a situation where people play around.”
Responses to requests for comment from the national and provincial IEC offices had not been received at the time of writing.
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