The Labour Party says it will launch an application to the Constitutional Court seeking to set aside the electoral timetable and a postponement of the May 29 elections. On Monday, the Electoral Court dismissed the party’s application to review the decision of the Electoral Commission (IEC) not to reopen the portal for submissions.
The deadline for submissions of candidate lists was March 8th. However, some parties allege that they were unable to comply with the deadline due to alleged glitches with the IEC’s online portal.
The party says it will seek the intervention of the Apex Court to challenge the majority judgment of the specialist court. It says parties that will not be able to participate in the May polls will be prejudiced and their exclusion would not be in the interests of free and fair elections.
The new political organisation will also rely on the minority dissenting judgment by the Electoral Court that said it would have granted the relief sought by the Labour Party, the African Congress for Transformation and the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats.
Additional member of the court, Professor Moses Phooko and Acting Judge AJ Shongwe were of the view that other avenues could have been made available to submit the list of party candidates to cater for unforeseen circumstances such as the present one.
They added that the mere fact that 87 parties alongside 24 independent candidates were able to upload their information timeously as opposed to the applicants should not be used to disenfranchise potential candidates and the complaints by the applicants cannot simply be dismissed as being their fault.
2024 Elections | Electoral Court vs aggrieved parties
