GNU EATS ITSELF: DA moves to knock ANC off ballot in 6 municipalities — as ANC cries 'right to vote is not yours to narrow'
Government of National Unity partners turn guns on each other in Electoral Court showdown that proves Solly Mapaila was right about DA's apartheid DNA
By Mpho Dube, Editor-in-Chief
The Azanian | Truth. Fearless. Unfiltered.
AZANIAFROCOMEDIA – The Catalyst of Impact
JOHANNESBURG — The Government of National Unity is no longer united. It is at war with itself — in court.
The Democratic Alliance, the ANC's own partner in the GNU formed after the ANC suffered a historic electoral collapse in the May 2024 National Elections — dropping to just 40% and failing to secure 50% plus one for the first time since 1994 — has filed legal papers to block the ANC from contesting the 04 November 2026 Local Government Elections in six municipalities.
The ANC is irritated, furious, and embarrassed. The DA is unmoved.
On Tuesday, 09 September 2026, DA Federal Council Chairperson Ashor Sarupen announced the party has approached the Electoral Court seeking leave to intervene to oppose the ANC's urgent application to condone its late submission of candidates.
The facts are common cause: All parties had until 17:00 on 28 August 2026 to submit candidate lists on the IEC's online system. The DA says it met the deadline in all 257 municipalities. The ANC did not. It captured candidates on the system but failed to press "submit as final" — a final electronic confirmation step the IEC requires.
"Deadlines are deadlines. The principle is simple," the DA said. "Capturing candidates on the IEC system is not the same as submitting them. The system expressly requires parties to 'submit as final': a process all parties clearly understood and successfully followed."
The DA says courts have repeatedly demanded "rigid adherence" to election deadlines because equal rules are essential to free and fair elections. "The ANC, or any other party, cannot receive special treatment simply because it failed to meet a deadline that applied equally to everyone."
That legalistic argument is precisely what has irritated the ANC, which sees its GNU partner weaponizing a technicality to win municipalities it cannot win at the ballot box — including the strategic Mangaung Metro.
The ANC's response on 09 September 2026, issued by National Spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri, was scathing and political.
"The DA has no quarrel with the Commission and no quarrel with the law," Secretary General Fikile Mbalula fired back. "Its quarrel is with the voters of six municipalities who might choose somebody other than the DA. Nothing the ANC asks for takes a single DA candidate off any ballot."
"What the DA asks for takes 2,274 candidates off the ballot, and 44 of the 45 parties they belong to are not the ANC."
This is the ANC's core defence: The IEC system glitch did not affect only the ANC. According to the Commission's own count, 45 parties failed to complete the final "submit as final" click, despite having candidate details loaded on the system before the deadline.
The ANC wants the Court to count what was lodged in time for all 45 parties on identical terms. "If the ANC succeeds, not a single DA candidate is affected. The DA remains on the ballot in every municipality in which it lodged. No party is removed, no list is reordered and no deadline is moved," the ANC said.
"The right to vote is sacrosanct. The Constitution guarantees every adult citizen the right to vote and the right to stand for public office, and our courts have repeatedly held that electoral law must be interpreted to promote participation."
The ANC also exposed that the Commission's own timetable allows curing defects after the deadline — notices for missing ID documents and acceptance forms were sent on 04 September, with parties given until 11 September to respond, and substitution of candidates allowed until 07 September. In 2021, the Commission even amended the timetable and reopened candidate nomination when circumstances required.
"The ANC's case asks for no reopening; it asks that what was lodged in time be counted," the ANC said. "The ANC wants no favours."
Mbalula's closing line has become a rallying cry: "A vote is won on the ballot and it is lost on the ballot. It must not be lost at a confirmation step on a website, and it must not be lost because a rival party found it convenient. The Court will decide, and the ANC will abide by what the courts decide."
But politically, this GNU court war is far bigger than a website click.
For months, SACP General Secretary Solly Mapaila has warned the ANC that it made a fatal ideological mistake by choosing the DA as its GNU partner.
Mapaila has repeatedly argued that the DA is not a neutral liberal party but a direct descendant of the apartheid National Party and the New National Party — carrying the same DNA of protecting white monopoly capital, opposing radical economic transformation, and using lawfare to block black majority participation.
The DA's move to have ANC candidates disqualified in six municipalities is, for Mapaila and the SACP, the smoking gun. It proves, they will argue, that the DA entered the GNU not to stabilize South Africa but to eat the ANC from inside — to win metros like Mangaung not by persuading voters, but by removing the ANC from the ballot.
It is a dangerous tension. The ANC is already battling internally. News24 reported on Wednesday that in Buffalo City Metro, Eastern Cape, ANC branches have written to Luthuli House alleging "tampering" with branch nomination processes, "manipulation of the PR list", and instructions to "submit empty nomination packages".
Dr WB Rubusana regional deputy chairperson Malibongwe Mfazwe, nominated by more than 33 branches, was allegedly placed at number 10 on the PR list because of political differences with regional chairperson Princess Faku — a known ally of Mbalula.
The ANC has approached the Electoral Court over that matter too.
So the ANC is fighting on two fronts: against its own internal factions over manipulated lists, and against its own GNU partner over late lists.
The DA says the ANC lodged 9,128 candidates and 8,947 were accepted — 97% of wards and 90% of PR seats nationally — so it is not wiped out. But in the six municipalities where it failed to submit as final, it faces total exclusion unless the Court saves it.
The Electoral Court must now decide what is more important in South Africa's young democracy: rigid deadlines, or the voters' right to choose.
And the GNU must decide if it can survive when partners are trying to disqualify each other.
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