ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba says the Electoral Commission’s (IEC) decision to leave his party’s name off the ballot and have it represented only by the party’s logo has left him feeling ‘gatvol’.
The IEC said that when it signed up as a political party, ActionSA elected not to register an abbreviated name or acronym.
Mashaba told News24: ‘It [the IEC’s decision] has made me angry; I am gatvol.’
This was an unnecessary distraction at a time when the party should be concentrating on ramping up its campaigning ahead of the 1 November municipal elections, he said.
ActionSA has filed an urgent application with the Electoral Court to overturn the decision.
The party said in a statement: ‘It is our contention that our party does not have an abbreviated name. One of the reasons “ActionSA” was chosen as our name is that it complies with the IEC’s own 8-character limit on abbreviated party names, thus, our party’s name could always be always used in full wheresoever it would be required.’
Mashaba commented: ‘Why do we have to use our acronym? As per the Electoral Act, if you have got your name that is under eight characters then this name ought to appear on the ballot. Why then would the IEC want us to still have an acronym?’
The IEC said that when ActionSA submitted its documents, it ‘responded with a “Not Applicable” in the space where the political party was required to indicate its abbreviated name’.
[Image: https://www.actionsa.org.za/]