Judges note ‘difficulty’ in DA’s PR list case against MKP, EFF, ActionSA, GOOD | News24

- The DA challenged four parties in the Electoral Court for submitting PR candidate lists with only one name for the local government elections.

- The DA claimed this strategy hid candidates from voters, violating transparency and the law.

- Judges noted that voters in a PR system voted for parties, not candidates, complicating the DA’s argument.

- For more political news, visit News24 Politics.

In a proportional representation (PR) system, people vote for a party, not a candidate, said Judge Lebogang Modiba when she heard the DA’s application against the MK Party (MKP), EFF, ActionSA and the GOOD party in the Electoral Court on Tuesday.

And she said this was where the difficulty lay for the DA in the case in which the party challenged its four opponents’ decision to file PR lists with a single name.

Modiba heard the case with Judge Nobahle Mangcu-Lockwood and Professor Moses Phooko during a virtual sitting.

ActionSA, the EFF, MKP and GOOD each submitted PR candidate lists with only one name for the 2026 local government elections across dozens or hundreds of municipalities.

The MKP was not a party to Tuesday’s proceedings.

Item 17 of the schedule to the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act allows the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to ask a party to supplement its PR list after an election if it wins more seats than it has named candidates.

The DA argued that the four parties were using this supplementation mechanism not as a safety net for unexpected results, but as a deliberate, planned strategy to keep their councillor candidates hidden from voters until after the ballots were counted.

The party argued that the four were using item 17 for a purpose it was not intended and that it was therefore illegal.

During Tuesday’s sitting, advocate Anton Katz, SC, for the DA, argued that voters should know who is on the candidate lists.

“This is common sense,” he said.

Katz added that the DA team had scoured the planet and could not find a country with a PR system where the candidates on the list were not identified.

The court noted that the legislation did not require a minimum number of candidates on the lists.

Mangcu-Lockwood asked:

Katz’s answer was unclear.

Advocate Johan de Waal, SC, for GOOD, said the party had been open and honest about submitting lists with only one candidate.

“They never tried to conceal. There is no dishonesty,” he added.

De Waal said it was “insulting” for the DA to suggest bad faith on GOOD’s part.

He added that the published list of candidates provided no details about the candidates; hence, it did not serve the purpose of transparency.

Advocate David Borgström, SC, for the IEC, said if the DA were correct, the IEC would be required to determine how many PR seats the parties could expect to fill after the elections.

“This is not something the commission would be well-placed to do,” he added, saying it would be “entirely inappropriate”.

Advocate Mfesane Ka Siboto, for the EFF, said it certainly was a compelling argument that the public was entitled to know who the candidates were, but the difficulty for the DA was that the remedies it sought did not address this.

Advocate Mfundo Salukazana, for ActionSA, added: “Ultimately, the voter votes for a party.”

He said voters could decide not to vote for a party that did not disclose its list, adding that ActionSA’s policy was to have only one-candidate PR lists, and that if a voter were displeased with this, it would count against the party.

Salukazana argued that the DA could not claim that ActionSA made this choice to conceal its candidates.

“The DA is being cynical in its approach.”

Advocate Michael Bishop responded to the arguments on the DA’s behalf, arguing that the Constitution required that parties declare their candidates before elections.

Modiba said:

That is why the PR ballot lists only parties, not candidates.

She added that the candidates only became relevant when seats were allocated.

“That is really where the difficulty lies for the DA in this matter.”

Bishop said: “Justice Modiba, I think the DA does have some difficulties in this matter, but I don’t think that is one of them.”

He added that the electoral system required parties to declare their candidates in advance.

“It does matter because some people do vote on who the candidates are,” argued Bishop.

Judgment has been reserved.