- GOOD and ActionSA were among the organisations to meet the IEC's deadline for submission of candidates' lists.
- The IEC extended its deadline on Monday by four hours, to allow political parties to submit candidates for the municipal elections.
- Parties are anxiously waiting for the outcome of a Constitutional Court hearing which could see the polls being postponed to next year.
The GOOD political party has submitted 961 ward councillor candidates and 761 proportional representation councillor candidates to the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) for the upcoming local government elections.
The new kid on the political block said it met Monday's 21:00 deadline for the submission of lists. The move followed the IEC announcing it was extending its deadline on Monday, allowing political parties to submit candidates' lists.
Political parties went ahead with submitting its candidates' lists, despite the Constitutional Court considering an urgent application by the IEC to postpone the municipal polls currently scheduled for 27 October.
The IEC had asked the apex court to rule the elections should take place early next year, due to concerns around the impact of Covid-19 on the vote.
Meanwhile, GOOD national campaign manager, Sam Mgobozi, said the party had "continued to work towards the local government elections as if they will go ahead on 27 October 2021. We are ready for these elections and if they are postponed by a month or three we will be even more ready".
The party announced that it would be contesting in 45 municipalities across five provinces, including in six metros.
"We are looking forward to a GOOD clean fight for spatial, social, environmental, and economic justice in every city and town," said Mgobozi.
Another newly formed political movement, ActionSA, announced that it completed all of its candidate nomination processes with the IEC and by the prescribed deadline.
The party's national chairperson, Michael Beaumont, said:
The party, which concluded its first of its kind candidate election
processes in Gauteng at the end of June, said through this process, the
movement managed to run a participative candidate process which included
residents of wards and municipalities.
"This was done in the height of Gauteng's third wave of Covid-19 infections, involved strict Covid protocols including online voting and, despite over 21 000 votes being cast, ActionSA was successful in keeping people safe from the pandemic. What has arisen from this process are ward and mayoral candidates who have been elected by the residents of wards and municipalities and not selected by politicians in smoke-filled rooms," Beaumont said.
On Tuesday, Forum 4 Service Delivery (F4SD) announced that the process of interviewing and officially announcing its mayoral candidates had begun. The party said they were on a mission to unveil "fit for purpose" and credible candidates who would campaign.
The party said it managed to submit the candidates' lists on time.
F4SD president Mbahare Kekana said his movement was fielding candidates across eight provinces.
"The F4SD ward candidates' age threshold ranges from 18 to 78-years-old. The duties of these candidates will be nothing else but service delivery to the sidelined majority and to hold the executive to account."
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