Municipal elections: IEC SLAMS Action SA claims as ‘mischievous’

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has responded to Action SA after the party complained about its name being omitted in the final draft ballot papers for Gauteng ward councillors. The IEC essentially says Action SA only has itself to blame for this as the party “elected not to register an abbreviated name or acronym.”

Action SA had written to the IEC about this and gave the electoral body until 10:00 to make rectifications, however the deadline was never met and now the party is heading to court.

Action SA vs IEC in ballot paper saga

Explaining how Action SA’s name omission came about, the IEC says it held a series of meetings with local Politcal Party Liaison Committees to enable political parties and independent candidates participating in the November 1 Municipal Elections to sign off on the draft ballot paper. It says this is meant to verify the completeness of administrative processes related to candidate nomination as well as confirmation of the registered party identifiers on the various ballots. 

“The use of registered particulars of a political party in the ballot paper design is intended to obviate ad hoc and arbitrary considerations. The unique identifiers are provided by each political party at the point of application for registration as a party. Thus, the scheme places responsibility on the party to register whatever details and identifiers it deems appropriate,” said IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela.

“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”

IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela

Action SA further implied that the IEC was not being impartial by making reference to its decision to extend the deadline for candidate submission after the ANC had failed to meet the same deadline. The IEC also says there are 14 other political parties in the same boat as Action SA.

“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 added.