The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has withdrawn from the court battle between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Congress of the People (Cope).
This emerged in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday after the IEC reached an agreement with the ANC. Counsel for the IEC said it would leave the battle over the ANC’s opposition to the Cope name to the two political parties.
The ANC is opposing Cope’s choice of name on the grounds that no party or person could appropriate the name of the 1955 Congress of the People.
The ruling part would also argue that the name would give the ”Johnny come lately” and ”new kid on the block” party immediate respectability, legitimacy and a ”jump start”.
Voters go to the polls on Wednesday in the first test of support for Cope.
They will cast their ballots in 41 municipal by-elections in five provinces, most of which are being contested by Cope.
But what would have been its most dramatic challenge to the ruling ANC in the Western Cape turned into a damp squib on Tuesday when the Electoral Court upheld an IEC decision to bar 12 ANC candidates after they missed the registration deadline.
Eight of them were seeking to contest former ANC seats in the Cape Town metro.
The IEC says 159 candidates will contest 41 wards in the Western Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape.
Meanwhile, Cope’s inaugural conference in Bloemfontein will not be turned into another Polokwane, with jostling for positions. Cope general secretary Charlotte Lobe said the conference, starting this weekend, is not an elective conference; rather, the party’s formal leadership will be named after delegates have been given an opportunity to decide the matter on ”a consensus basis”.
”Our focus is on a team of people who will take Cope to the 2009 elections,” she said.
Cope revealed that it has registered more than 400 000 paid-up members, excluding members that have opted for online registration. Judging by the figures given on Tuesday, the Eastern Cape seems to be Cope’s stronghold, with 160 000 members, followed by the Free State with 74 000.
The Western Cape has got 60 000 registered members and the Northern Cape and Limpopo have managed to attract 30 000 members each. Despite Cope’s head offices being in Gauteng, the province’s membership is curiously low with only 24 000 people paying the R30 a year registration fee. Cope counted 25 000 members in the North West and 15 000 in Mpumalanga. KwaZulu-Natal is the lowest with 10 000 members.