The registration of the Jacob Zuma-led MK Party by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) was nothing but a fly-by-night arrangement.
This is according to ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who on Tuesday said the IEC had not been transparent and did not follow the law in registering the MK Party.
Mbalula was speaking to the media in Bloemfontein, where the ANC has taken the IEC and MK Party to the electoral court. It is seeking to have the registration of the MK Party declared unlawful and nullified.
The ANC argued in court that the IEC contravened the law by allowing the MK Party to supplement its registration application when it had already rejected it and called for a “fresh” one.
By informing the MK Party in August that it had rejected its application, the IEC closed the matter, and had MK Party wished to still pursue its registration it would have had to apply anew, argued the ANC.
This meant, the ANC said , there was no application for registration of the MK Party after the rejection letter and the IEC could not have made a decision to register the party without a new application.
We listened to the debate here today, I don’t know why people can make themselves feel so bad. I can’t tell you what was the argument really, there’s been no argument presented here that this party belongs to the ANC.
— Jacob Zuma, MK Party leader
It would have been in this new application, the party argued, that the ANC would have had an opportunity to object but never did because the IEC allowed the MK Party to simply reopen the rejected application to remedy the defects that led to its rejection, which included suspicion of forging signatures.
This, the ANC argued, was unlawful because a “fresh” application meant the MK Party would have to start an entirely new process that would have been gazetted afresh to allow for objections.
Mbalula said the entire process of the registration of the MK Party was therefore questionable.
“We have taken a political decision to challenge the existence of MK because we believe that how it was registered through the IEC is a matter we believe needed to be challenged, and we have challenged that and argued that particular case in court,” said Mbalula.
“We don’t think that it has followed all the necessary prescripts and this was just a fly by night arrangement, quick-quick it’s registered and using technical issues which unfortunately we’ve got to argue in court, which we have done so. That’s why we feel things were not transparent in terms of dealing with this particular case.”
He said the case could go either way when the electoral court finally delivers its judgment, but he was confident the ANC had put up a strong case.
“It’s possible he can win the case because winning the case really is not a moral issue, it’s a question of who put the best argument forward and what is legally permissible,” he said.
“We believe too we stand the ground to win the case, we have put a cogent case forward. He’s got an advantage because the IEC agrees with him in a particular way, but we have challenged the IEC in that regard.”
Zuma, however, told the MK Party outside court that the ANC had failed to present a sound argument.
“We listened to the debate here today, I don’t know why people can make themselves feel so bad. I can’t tell you what was the argument really, there’s been no argument presented here that this party belongs to the ANC,” he said.
“ANC is an organisation of its own, uMkhonto weSizwe is an organisation of its own. We are going to compete with the ANC. We are going to bring back the ANC because it belongs to our forefathers. When we take government, we are going to bring the ANC to our side and eject the thugs from it.”
Adv Dali Mpofu argued for the MK Party that the rejection letter did not mean the entire application was thrown out.
Judgement was reserved.
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