Almost half of the Pan Africanist Congress’ municipal election candidates for the Cape Town metro have been disqualified because of inadequate documentation.
PAC leader Motsoko Pheko told the South African Press Association on Thursday that 23 of the 76 candidates had been rejected by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) because the commission said they had not furnished certified copies of their ID documents to the IEC.
He claimed the candidates had indeed handed in certified copies, and accused the IEC of ”inefficiency, if not corruption”.
Each time the PAC was required to hand in copies of candidates’ IDs to the IEC, they were certified and the party kept ”copies”, Pheko said.
The IEC had also disqualified a further five PAC candidates because they were not registered voters.
While the party accepted this as a valid reason for disqualification, it did not accept the reason given for the other 23 candidates, as well as for one PAC candidate in
Hermanus/Overstrand who was rejected for not being a South African citizen.
This candidate, Wandisile Dlepu, was ”from Transkei” and had been disqualified even though he was a registered voter who had cast his ballot in three previous elections.
The PAC was considering legal action, Pheko said. However, Western Cape Provincial Electoral Officer Courtney Sampson said Dlepu had been disqualified because his ID was ”invalid”.
It had been issued during the era of the TBVC (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) states, and portrayed him as a non-South African citizen.
When registering people to vote, the IEC noted only a person’s ID number, while other information, such as citizenship, came from the home affairs department’s population register.
Therefore, while Dlepu was registered to vote, he was not registered as a citizen on the population register. He would have to update his ID book.
Regarding the other 23 rejected candidates, Sampson said they were all ”genuine exclusions”.
While they had all handed in copies of their IDs, none had been certified copies.
The PAC group had arrived late at the IEC offices — virtually on the deadline. Had they come earlier, they would have had time to have the copies certified before the cut-off time, Sampson said.
He was at pains to emphasise that the IEC fully understood this was ”a sensitive time”, and the IEC ”will not walk casually over people’s dreams and aspirations”.
However, all candidates from all parties had to comply with all the legal requirements without exception.
The IEC could not, for example, accept an application one minute past the cut-off time simply because it was ”just a little bit late”, Sampson said. – Sapa