Deadline looms for political parties and independents to meet IEC's 5pm deadline

The Electoral Commission of South Africa's deadline for parties and independent candidates to submit candidate lists looms.

Political parties and independent candidates have until 5 pm on Friday, August 28 to submit their councillor nominations to contest the 2026 Local Government Elections.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) urged all political parties and candidates who intend to participate in the elections to ensure that their candidate nomination details and all required information are completed and submitted well ahead of the deadline.

Kate Bapela, spokesperson for the IEC, said this will enable a seamless transition to post-nomination processes. She warned that the stipulated date and time are based on the election timetable and cannot be changed or negotiated.

In the corresponding LGE elections in 2021, there were 4,600 municipal wards, which will be updated in the upcoming weeks.

According to the IEC, there are 609 registered political parties, of which 383 are registered at national level, while the remaining 226 are registered at provincial or municipal level. On February 17, 2025, the IEC gave notice, in writing, to 192 political parties of its intention to cancel the registration of those parties.

Following the expiry of the date for them to make representations, the IEC stated that 136 political parties made representations to preserve their status as registered parties. Three parties requested the commission to cancel their registrations while 53 did not respond to the invitation to make representation. Once the commission has made decisions in respect of all those parties, the register of parties will be updated.

The cancellation of the registration of inactive political parties is necessary to ensure that only active political parties remain on the register. The cancellations will also free the usage of names, abbreviated names, logos, and colour schemes for aspirant parties.

During the last National and Provincial Elections in 2024, only 70 (16%) of the 449 parties registered nationally and provincially contested the elections. Of the 70 parties that contested, only 20 received enough votes to gain representation.

Of the approximately 9,473 councillors elected in LGE 2021, only 1,421 (15%) were persons younger than 35. Similarly, only 93 out of the 889 representatives elected following NPE 2024 were young persons.

Over the last registration weekend in August, 1.7 million citizens interacted with the Electoral Commission by visiting one of the 23,699 registration stations or using the online voter registration portal.

Of the 1.7 million transactions, 291,806, or 16%, were persons registering as first-time voters. Additionally, 1.5 million or 84% of persons, already registered, inspected and updated their registration details.

In terms of provincial outcomes, KwaZulu-Natal recorded the highest volume of registration transactions at 427,592, followed by Gauteng with 314,856, while the Eastern Cape was third with 313,797.