The ANC’s head of the Presidency, Sibongile Besane, has labelled the president of African Congress for Transformation Movement (ACT), Ace Magashule incompetent.
Besane said that Magashule personified mediocrity as well as political distortion.
“He has an experience of nearly plunging the ANC into a disaster of late registration of ANC councillors in 2021, he has a history of manipulating the ANC’s processes in 2012-2017. We are not saying this out of hatred, it is just incompetence personified,” Besane emphasised.
The ANC’s head of presidency added that he was not surprised that Magashule’s party was not on the ballot papers.
Besane said that he was mentioning all this as Magashule fails to accomplish the basics such as registering his own party.
He was responding to a report in the “Daily Maverick” last week that the party failed to make it to the ballot papers for the general elections.
However, the party has issued a statement dismissing the “Daily Maverick” report, which sought to suggest that ACT won’t be on his year’s ballot papers.
In its response, the party accused the publication of deliberately distorting the truth to serve their malicious purposes.
“ACT has officially committed to participating in the upcoming national and provincial elections by signing an electoral pledge with the IEC.
“Furthermore, ACT will participate in the elections at both the national and provincial levels, disregarding the unwarranted alarm and disarray that the ‘Daily Maverick’ is attempting to instil in our members, volunteers, and voters.
“The ‘Daily Maverick’ fails to address the main point, which is that our legal application was not intended to request the court to force the IEC (Electoral Commission of South Africa) to include ACT on the ballot paper. We have fulfilled the requirement by remitting the requisite deposit and providing all the mandated signatures.
“The matter we are disputing with the IEC pertains to their online registration platform for candidates. We requested the IEC to provide us permission to submit our complete candidate lists as a solution, seeing that their system failed on 8 March 2024,” the party said in a statement.
Speaking to “The Star” on Sunday, the party’s spokesperson Mohau Khumalo said the “Daily Maverick” was intentionally distorting the party’s position and the court judgment to create the false impression that ACT will not be participating in the elections.
“ACT guarantees that it will participate in all three ballot papers on May 29, 2024. Furthermore, we would like to notify our voters that our appeal application has already been submitted to the Constitutional Court for a definitive decision on this matter.
“ACT concurs with the dissenting judgment of Judges Phooko and Shongwe, who assert in their minority judgment that if left unaddressed, this matter has the potential to raise a doubt whether or not the elections were free and fair.
“We are certain that the Constitutional Court will reach the same verdict as the minority judgment, granting us the opportunity to field all our candidates,” added Khumalo.
The spokesperson didn’t want to venture into Besane’s accusations against Magashule, saying that everyone who knew Magashule knew what he was capable of.
The Star