The controversial Karoo-based party, the Independent Civic Organisation of South Africa (Icosa), will not be on the ballot for this year’s election, for the first time since it made its debut in the 2006 local government elections.
The party failed to meet the new signature threshold that parties that are unrepresented in the various provincial legislatures and National Assembly need to meet before being able to be on the ballot paper.
To contest elections in the Western Cape, an unrepresented party needs just over 7 000 votes. Icosa managed only 2 000.
The party has been wracked by turmoil in recent months which hampered its ability to organise.
Following the 2021 local government elections, Icosa and the ANC formed a coalition to govern the municipality of Kannaland in the central Karoo. After Jeffrey Donson, the leader of Icosa, was elected mayor, it emerged that he had been convicted of statutory rape and indecent assault in 2008.
Donson and his son were subsequently expelled from the party, which has been a large part of the party’s dysfunction as there have been court battles over who is in charge of it.