President Cyril Ramaphosa’s urgent address to the nation on the eve of the election was necessitated by intelligence briefings on the security situation, said the president in court papers on Tuesday.
“There was a need to assure the country that adequate security measures were in place to secure the elections,” he said.
Ramaphosa was responding to the Democratic Alliance’s case in the Electoral Court in which it said the president had abused his power as head of state by using a presidential address to the nation on May 26 to campaign for the ANC in “nothing more than a thinly-veiled stump speech”.
The DA has asked the Electoral Court to declare that the president’s address violated the constitution and the Electoral Act, to fine Ramaphosa R200,000 and to order that the ANC’s votes in the national election be reduced by 1%.
In an affidavit, head of the DA’s federal council, Helen Zille, said though the speech was “carefully crafted to never mention the ANC by name, nor to ever directly call on any person to vote for the ANC”, it was nonetheless “a transparent attempt to trumpet the supposed ‘achievements’ of the ANC’s last five years in power, and a call to vote the ANC into power again”.
But Ramaphosa said his speech was “non-partisan” and was in line with his constitutional duties. It “assured the nation that the elections would be secure, free and fair” and “reminded all of us of the challenges that we have faced in the past and that we overcame them together”.
He said in the 10 days preceding the elections, South Africa’s National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (Natjoints) had been reporting about measures put in place to ensure the elections proceeded without incidents of crime and disruption. These came amid reports of volatile areas, calls for a shutdown, the possibility of community protests, reports of vandalism and break-ins at IEC storage sites, obstruction of election activities at sites in KwaZulu-Natal, threats to IEC staff and “the spreading of fake news, unverified information, rumours or threats with the intention of causing confusion and inciting possible violence”.
“Whereas the IEC addressed the problem from its vantage point ... I received continuous briefing regarding the security situation. The content of the briefings is a sensitive matter that may not be publicly shared. But the briefings showed that there was a need to assure the country,” he said.
In the DA’s affidavit, Zille did not take issue with Ramaphosa’s assurances to the nation about the safety of the election. But she said the majority of Ramaphosa’s speech was spent “extolling the supposed achievements of his administration”.
The DA’s affidavit did a comparative exercise between the presidential address to the nation and Ramaphosa’s speech at the ANC’s final election rally the day before. “There is substantial overlap,” said Zille.
But Ramaphosa said the presidential address was also about promoting national unity and instilling confidence in the democratic process. “In the process, my speech also closed off the work of an administration whose term was ending. It merely reflected a status report on our collective achievements,” he said.
He said he did not single out any political party as being responsible for these achievements and when he said “let us build on the progress that we have made”, he was calling on all South Africans to “secure the gains of freedom so that South Africa does not regress,” said Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa said the DA’s “nitpicking” comparison between the presidential address and his speech at the ANC rally was a “concerted attempt to distort the facts and force a false narrative”.
Though there was some overlap, the themes were common because they reflected key issues of concern to South Africans. Attached to Ramaphosa’s affidavit was the president’s own comparative exercise, prepared by his advisers, of manifestos of other political parties to illustrate this, he said.
Ramaphosa was supported by the ANC — in an affidavit by secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who said the DA had “distorted the essence” of Ramaphosa’s address.
Mbalula said the DA quoted selectively, and he listed portions of the speech that Zille had failed to mention. By quoting selectively, the DA “seeks to import a meaning ... that was not intended by the president or received by the reasonable reader or listener”, he said.
The real meaning was “of stocktaking the nation’s gains as well as the losses, the collective triumph of a people over tribulations as well as the resilience of a nation”, he said.
Mbalula also said the orders the DA sought were arbitrary and unwarranted. The DA's case was brought against Ramaphosa as president of South Africa as well as in his personal capacity and as president of the ANC. Mbalula said Ramaphosa did not address the nation in his personal capacity or as president of the ANC so it was not warranted that he be ordered to pay R200,000.
The order sought for the reduction of 1% of the ANC’s votes was “extraordinary, disproportionate and unconstitutional”, said Mbalula.
He said it would disenfranchise a “sizeable number of votes” for conduct that was not connected to them in any way. The DA wanted the court to punish these voters when there was no proof that their votes were influenced by the president’s speech.
“The DA does not disclose or even propose to the Electoral Court any quantification formula behind the 1% figure, except to say it is a ‘fair reduction’ ... It is not shown to the court how many voters watched or listened to the presidential address, how many of those who watched or listened to it ultimately voted for the ANC or how many of those who voted for the ANC did so as a direct result of the presidential address.”
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