CARIEN DU PLESSIS
Political Bureau
THE ANC is yet to apply for an interdict to stop the DA from distributing what the ruling party has described as a “defamatory and libellous” pamphlet claiming that Planning Minister Trevor Manuel has urged voters not to vote ANC in next Wednesday’s local government elections.
ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa said yesterday that the party would go to the High Court in Joburg later in the day, but last night party lawyer Matodzi Ratshimbilani said he was still considering issues such as whether the electoral court would be the correct forum to approach.
The ANC brought charges of crimen injuria and fraud against the DA yesterday for the pamphlet, entitled Trevor Manuel is telling South Africans not to vote ANC.
The party also took its complaint to the Independent Electoral Commission.
The DA denies having printed and distributed the two-page document, printed on plain A4 paper, but said it stood by most of the content, which was the wording of a statement sent out by the DA’s Lindiwe Mazibuko in March, quoting some of Manuel’s assessments of government service delivery weaknesses.
The pamphlet, however, added an incorrect quote attributed to Manuel just below the heading, saying “the ANC is unaccountable, racist, corrupt and a party that has failed to deliver to the poor” – something which the DA said was not in the party’s statement.
In the pamphlet, Manuel is quoted on delivery; poverty alleviation; the government’s record of openness; health care; oversight; the lack of skills in middle management in government; and corruption in the ANC.
It also quotes Manuel’s letter to government spokesman Jimmy Manyi in which he slammed Manyi’s statement that there was an “over-supply” of coloureds in the Western Cape.
The pamphlet says Manuel was so unhappy with the ANC’s record that he had ignored President Jacob Zuma’s instructions not to speak publicly about differences within the ANC.
ANC member Steve Ndlovu, from Moroka, Soweto, in a sworn affidavit which Manuel submitted to police yesterday, said someone wearing a DA T-shirt had given him a copy.
Phosa claimed the pamphlet went “against the letter and spirit of the electoral law” and was “deliberately designed” to defame Manuel.
“This pamphlet is defamatory and libellous and has all the hallmarks of the apartheid CCB’s dirty tricks,” he said.
The Civil Co-operation Bureau was a unit of the SA Defence Force suspected of carrying out assassinations of activists.
Cape Town’s DA mayoral candidate, Patricia de Lille, told UCT students yesterday that her party was not intimidated by the ANC, but “they are intimidated by us”.
Mazibuko said the ANC’s attempt to stop the pamphlet was “a desperate attempt to do absolutely anything to avoid talking about service delivery”.