Contest: The DA announced federal chairperson Zille as its mayoral candidate in Johannesburg. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G
Democratic Alliance (DA) federal chairperson Helen Zille will defend a complaint by the ANC that she violated the Electoral Code of Conduct in her social media posts parodying its election posters.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula has asked the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to act against Zille for posting an X image, in which the words “ANC a lower quality of life for all, let’s do more crime, together, vote ANC” were superimposed on an ANC election poster.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian this week, Zille was unrepentant about her actions, saying that she was simply “telling the truth” in the “slightly adapted” social media post.
“I’m always getting into trouble for telling the truth,” Zille said. “I’m used to it. They sent me a letter and I sent it to my lawyer.”
She said she would defend the matter should it end up in court, reiterating: “You’re allowed to tell the truth in this country.”
In their notice to Zille, lawyers for the IEC said they were acting in response to a complaint by Mbalula that she had breached the electoral code in her post.
They said Mbalula alleged that she had violated section 9 (1)(c) of the code in that the post “constitutes plagiarism” as no party may “plagiarise the symbols, colours or acronyms of other registered parties”.
The lawyers asked Zille to respond in detail to Mbalula’s allegations in writing by Tuesday ( 21 May), saying that should she fail to do so, “unfortunately the commission will be left with no option but to take the necessary steps as required by the law without your response”.
A violation of the code comes with a range of sanctions, which can include a prison term of up to 10 years. Other punishments include a fine of R200 000, while the party involved can be forced to forfeit its election deposit.
A party can also be stopped from working in an area where an offence took place, have its votes in an area cancelled or have its registration with the IEC cancelled.
The IEC had not responded to queries from the M&G at the time of writing, but Mbalula confirmed that he had initiated action with the IEC.
Turning to the DA’s proposed court challenge to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of the National Health Insurance Billl into law, Zille said her party’s lawyers were collecting evidence in the provinces. They were only likely to file court papers after the elections.
“We are having to gather an enormous amount of information from all nine provinces. We have a very good team of lawyers working on it. We will be ready to launch probably not before the elections,” she said.
Zille said a DA led government would not implement the NHI if it came to power nationally because “there isn’t the money to implement it in the first place”.
“What we have to do is fix up the public health infrastructure, as we have done in the Western Cape. When you fix up the public health infrastructure, you effectively have an NHI,” she said.