Yet another new contestant of the upcoming national and provincial elections will be challenging the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) at the Constitutional Court.
Build One SA leader Mmusi Maimane bemoaned the commission’s requirements of new parties having to garner 60 000 votes in order for it to contest elections.
Recently, the Constitutional Court ruled to ignore an urgent application to challenge the high number of signature requirements for new entrants.
Maimane was briefing the media outside the IEC offices in Centurion, Pretoria, yesterday, where he also announced that his newly formed party had been able to meet the required signatures to contest the May elections.
He said the party had collected more than 140 000 signatures required by the IEC, which were hand-delivered to the IEC offices. However, he added that the party was planning to further contest that requirement in the apex court because it was unfair.
On the sidelines, Maimane compared this year’s requirement to the previous years where only 1 000 signatures were needed for new parties to contest elections.
“We took the fight to the Constitutional Court about the signatures issue … and I’m grateful to say that Bosa was able to get over 140 000 signatures and is still counting.
“We say it’s unfair because it has been the signature requirement for new entrants only, while previously a new party needed only 1 000 signatures of support to qualify to contest elections.
“However, the new Electoral Amendment Act has radically hiked this number up in a sinister effort to stymie competition and political choice,” Maimane said.
He confirmed that his party would be challenging the act in its entirety in the apex court post the May 29 elections.
Maimane said there was poor education on the side of the IEC as to why so many signatures of support were needed.
“But there’s been absolutely poor education by the IEC. As we fought them in the Constitutional Court on the issue of independent candidates, the court ruled that it must be 1 000 for independent candidates and we assumed that it would be the same for new parties … but ultimately the IEC has not educated people,” he said.
On Wednesday, The Star reported that a newly formed party, the Economic Liberators Forum (ELF) was gearing up to take on the IEC over a logo and the name similar to that of the EFF.
The party, led by Hulisani Mani, lost an appeal against the decision of the IEC to refuse to register them to contest the upcoming general elections.
The commission barred the ELF’s attempt to register its party last week following the EFF’s complaint to the IEC for them to register the party.
But the party is resilient, saying that they will be taking the IEC to the Constitutional Court over the matter.
Meanwhile, on the election list of candidates due to be handed to the IEC on Friday, Maimane said Bosa would be fielding 120 candidates for the elections across all lists.
He heaped praises on his team, saying they are the right people to serve the people of South Africa.
“This group has the right blend of skills, experience, diversity, and passion to serve the people of South Africa with aplomb in legislatures across the country,” he said.
Maimane said the party would be submitting 19 lists to the IEC of which would comprise one national-to-national, nine regional-to-national, and nine regional-to-regional.
The Star