The Freedom Front Plus has lodged criminal charges in Pretoria/Tshwane against the official opposition Democratic Alliance over what it regards as the spreading of ”false information” through the broadcasting of a DA advertisement for the local government election.
The advertisement says a vote for the FF+ would ”split the vote and give more power to the African National Congress”.
The DA dismissed the action as ”the anguished cry of a party that is being squeezed hard by the DA” ahead of the nationwide municipal election on March 1.
The Afrikaner-based FF+ Gauteng leader Jaco Mulder and its national MP Willie Spies lodged criminal charges at the Brooklyn police station.
The party said the charges followed the contravention by the DA of the provisions of Section 69 (2) of the Local Government Municipal Electoral Act, 2000. The said Section states that ”no person may publish any false information with the intention of influencing the conduct or outcome of an election”.
The action follows ”the ongoing broadcast” of the advert by the DA on various national broadcasters, the FF+ said.
The party said: ”The DA is not only misleading voters by creating the impression that a vote for the FF+ helps the ANC, but it also undermines the constitutional principles of proportional representation and multiparty democracy.”
Mulder and Spies said the entire notion of ”splitting the opposition” is false and without any basis of truth. The proportional representation system makes it impossible for a party to ”split the opposition” in order to benefit the ruling party. The electoral system allows every party to gain representation in direct relation to its support. Even if a party doesn’t win a single ward, it will win representation in proportion to its total ward and proportional votes, it argued.
”The FF+ approached the Independent Electoral Commission [IEC] three weeks ago about similar complaints, but we were advised by the IEC to rather take the matter to the police for criminal investigation. The DA nevertheless persisted with its campaign to the detriment of the FF+ and other minority parties. They therefore left us with no choice but to approach the South African Police Service to investigate the matter,” Spies said.
In terms of the Act, a contravention of Section 69(2) is a criminal offence, said Spies.
DA spokesperson Gareth van Onselen said the charge is without basis.
”A united opposition is more focused and more coherent than a divided one. Consequently, a united opposition is a better protection against the African National Congress abuse of power than a divided opposition.
”One need look no further than Parliament itself for proof of this because in Parliament many small opposition parties — the FF+, the Independent Democrats and the Minority Front — spend more time trying to get on the right side of the ANC than on doing the work of an opposition.”
Van Onselen said it is also true that at ward level, the ANC can win if opposition votes are divided between opposition parties. This happened last year in Brakpan, where the DA lost a by-election to the ANC by 28 votes, while the FF+ won 113 votes — ”very little, but enough to give the ward to the ANC”.
Equally, the party with the biggest fraction of votes wins the last available seat in any council. If opposition voters divide their support between opposition parties, and the ANC then gets the largest fraction, it will win that seat. In a town like Midvaal, for example, this could be the difference between the DA winning or losing the council to the ANC, the DA argued.
”In short, the objections of the FF+ are without either political or technical basis.” — I-Net Bridge