CENTURION, Gauteng — Defending the operational integrity of the IEC Candidate Nomination System against recent allegations of technical failures, James Aphane, the General Manager for Electoral Operations, has confirmed that the digital portal closed exactly on schedule and will not be reopened for late political party entries.
The firm stance follows a Wednesday briefing addressing complaints from political factions, most notably the ANC. On Monday, the party issued a statement claiming that technical hurdles within the commission’s candidate-capture portal prevented them from finalizing all entries prior to the strict Friday 5 pm cut-off, despite having successfully submitted several names earlier.
Aphane dismissed the outage allegations as a “recurring theme” that predictably surfaces during every election cycle. He clarified a vital operational distinction for contestants: the difference between merely “capturing” candidate details on a screen and formally “submitting” them into the electoral basket. According to Aphane, the Online Candidate Nomination System (OCNS) functioned flawlessly on the commission’s end, bound strictly by the election timetable. He cited robust internal databases, secure application layers, and verified server infrastructure backed by comprehensive audit trails. Any connectivity failures, he suggested, likely stemmed from the external digital ecosystem—such as a user’s personal gadget or local internet infrastructure—rather than the IEC’s own tested and approved environment.
Transitioning from technical disputes to electoral demographics, the briefing also provided a granular look at the current candidate pool. Addressing reports of a gender gap, Aphane confirmed that men currently dominate the nomination landscape at 62%, with women accounting for 38%. He stressed that these percentages reflect hard, real-time data rather than a speculative survey.
However, he cautioned that these metrics are not yet final. Because electoral law permits parties to initially submit just a single candidate for both Proportional Representation (PR) and Ward nominations, the current snapshot is incomplete. The definitive candidate roster will be published on the 16th, followed by the issuance of official contestation certificates on the 25th of the month.
While deferring to policymakers and political analysts on the sociological reasons behind the gender disparity, Aphane noted that the current 62/38 split closely mirrors historical outcomes. Following the 2021 local government elections, the final roster of elected councilors was 63.1% male and 36.9% female.
Yet, in a striking contrast to candidate representation, female voters drove the polls in 2021. Aphane highlighted a massive turnout surge where women accounted for 58% of all actual votes cast, compared to just 42% by men.
Tracking these complex demographic and geographic trends is a highly streamlined process for the commission. Aphane explained that all electoral data is anchored to specific voting districts. This geographic mapping allows the IEC to seamlessly analyze localized metrics and roll the data up through ward, municipal, provincial, and national levels, ensuring highly accurate, real-time election analytics without the need for complex external surveys.
