The deadline has now passed for political parties to submit their candidate lists for the local government elections.
This is a huge turnaround for the governing party, which recently found itself scrambling after initially failing to register candidates for more than 20 municipalities. The current registration period closes at 5pm on Tuesday afternoon.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has maintained that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was doing a favour for the African National Congress (ANC), which failed to register candidates to contest the local polls in more than 20 municipalities.
IEC Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo has welcomed the Constitutional Court ruling, saying that the IEC acted within the confines of the law when it opened the candidate registration process.
The youth league said it was dissatisfied with the lack of young people within the party structures pointing to the recent PR lists of the local government elections.
Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo gave the figures for the voter registration weekend during a media conference on Monday.
The Constitutional Court unanimously dismissed the DA’s application to have the IEC’s decision to reopen the candidate list declared unlawful, invalid and unconstitutional.
The IEC is briefing the media on the outcome of the voter registration weekend.
On Monday, the apex court handed down a judgment dismissing an application by the Democratic Alliance (DA) and others to have the reopening of candidate nominations declared unconstitutional.
The apex court delivered a unanimous decision earlier on Monday, dismissing the main opposition’s application to prevent the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) from reopening the councillor candidate list.
The first day of the voter registration weekend for the 1 November local government elections is well under way.
From electricity cuts, housing, water supply and the general upkeep of essential resources, residents did not hold back.
South Africans have been urged to register, update or verify their details ahead of the November local government elections.
There are 25.6 million people on the roll and the Independent Electoral Commission hopes to increase this to 26 million by Monday.
While the opposition has yet to make major national inroads against the historic party that brought Nelson Mandela to power in 1994, the ANC has been hemorrhaging votes over the years and stands to lose even more in the local elections, analysts and polls predict.
The electoral commission said that the Western Cape had 1,577 registration stations that would be open on Saturday and Sunday from 8am in the morning until 5pm in the evening.
Advocacy group Freedom Under Law (FUL) said that political players could not act without any considerations of the consequences of their actions on the country.
The ANC's Jessie Duarte said the IEC could not reopen voter registration without opening up candidate lists submission, because candidates are also registered voters.
