CAPE TOWN - ActionSA has threatened the Electoral Commission (IEC) with legal action, saying its name was not included in the final draft ballot papers for ward candidates.
The political party gave the commission until 10am on Sunday to remedy the absence of its name on the ballot papers. However, they said that came and went without a response, leaving them to presume that IEC had no intention to remedy the matter.
“In this regard ActionSA has concluded a meeting with our legal team, who are bewildered by the commission’s refusal to remedy this issue. They have affirmed our position that there is no legal basis for the commission to refuse this request and are confident the courts will share this perspective,” the party said.
But IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela said the absence of the abbreviated name of ActionSA on the ward ballots was because, at the point of registering as a party, they elected not to register an abbreviated name or acronym.
“The absence of the abbreviated name of ActionSA on the ward ballots is because, at the point of registering as a party, ActionSA elected not to register an abbreviated name or acronym. ActionSA, in their documents in which they applied for registration as a political party, and which must be publicly lodged in terms of the regulations, responded with a ‘Not Applicable’ in the space where the political party was required to indicate its abbreviated name.
“The party went further to indicate that ‘there is no abbreviation of the name of the party’ as part of its application documentation. The application was lodged in Government Gazette 43940, published on 27 November 2020.
“The insinuation that the commission is acting without due impartiality is without foundation and mischievous. The onus to choose party identifiers rests with the political party and not the commission and the scheme in the ballot design has been part of our electoral management practice since the inception of democratic local government in 2000,” Bapela said.
ActionSA said in their brief time as a political party it had been “beset by issues with the IEC”.
“We have been refused to register as a party and we have been ignored in our concerns about the Multi-Party Democracy Fund that the IEC openly advocates for people to exclusively fund political parties established in Parliament. The exclusion of our candidates from the candidate list published this week has been solved but not publicised and we must endure an arbitrary refusal to reflect ActionSA equally on the ballot papers,” the party said.
They said a legal team would immediately begin drafting papers on an urgent basis, and they would brief the media on Wednesday morning.
Cape Times