Build One South Africa (BOSA) leader, Mmusi Maimane, has confirmed that his party will appear on all ballots on Election Day, May 29, after collecting about 140,000 signature submissions.
"Today, we can announce we have received over 140,000 signature submissions, more than double what is required by law," Maimane said.
These signatures qualify BOSA to contest the elections nationally and in all nine provinces.
Maimane announced this during a media briefing outside the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) offices in Centurion, Pretoria, on Thursday.
The signatures were hand-delivered to the IEC by BOSA leaders.
This follows the Constitutional Court's ruling not to entertain an urgent application to challenge the unjustifiably high hurdle of signature requirements for new entrants ahead of this year's elections. As the law stands, new parties require approximately 60,000 signatures — almost 60 times more than previously.
"The burden is unjustifiably high," the BOSA leader said.
During the briefing, Maimane stated BOSA will field 120 candidates for election across all lists.
"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.
"We will be submitting 19 lists to the IEC: one national-to-national, nine regional-to-national, and nine regional-to-regional. These lists will be publicly available on the IEC website," he added.
He confidently said the provincial campaign coordinators lead hundreds of volunteers who campaign every day, door to door, community to community, ahead of the 2024 elections.
Maimane also indicated that BOSA had raised funds from donors, both large and small, and mentioned that they had disclosed all donations received exceeding R100,000.
Furthermore, he said they would announce their Premier candidates in due course.
"Now that our candidate lists are finalised, we will resume the process of identifying BOSA Premier Candidates. The candidates will be announced in the coming weeks," he concluded.
IOL Politics