The Constitutional Court has ruled that three parties will be excluded from the ballot paper of the 2024 elections. They are the newly formed Labour Party, the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats and the African Congress for Transformation (ACT).
This comes after the three political parties appealed to the Constitutional Court to rule on whether the IEC’s online portal for the submission of political party candidate lists had malfunctioned and prevented the parties from complying with Section 27 of the Electoral Act.
The applicants were barred from contesting the upcoming elections after they had failed to comply with Section 27 of the Electoral Act by submitting their lists by the March deadline. The applicants blamed their failure to comply on the IEC’s online portal, which they allege, malfunctioned.
The Electoral Court, however, ruled in favour of the IEC, finding that evidence showed that the Online Candidate Nomination System functioned without issues at the relevant time.
The IEC opposed the three applications before the apex court and submitted that if the court grants the relief sought, the IEC will not be in a position to deliver free and fair elections on 29 May 2024.
