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Opposition parties confident in their party lists

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Opposition parties expressed confidence in the candidates they submitted to the IEC. They say the candidates enjoy integrity and have no criminal record.

These candidates will be deployed to Parliament on the basis of proportional representation. This means that a party with a bigger slice of the vote has a better chance of getting its members into Parliament.

The IEC closed the process at 17:00 on Wednesday.

By 9am, 22 political parties had paid their deposits and 12 parties had submitted candidate lists for the 2019 elections.

Approximately, 34 parties intend contesting.

Only those registered parties which have paid their deposits and submitted candidate lists will be allowed to contest the elections.

Opposition parties were content with the process, which included screening of individuals, interviews and short listing.

The DA says its list is proof of its congress resolution to see diversity. It also discussed women representation. The DA’s Mike Moriarty says the party has finalised and submitted a diverse party list to the Independent Electoral Commission.

“You will see in terms of what comes through, a whole diverse range of people. Young or old, White, Black, Coloured, Indian. Whether they come from a strong academic background or relatively humble background, rich or poor. So we embrace the full diversity of our country, and we are very excited with what we’ve done.”

The EFF also submitted its list on Wednesday. The party says it submitted both national and provincial lists. The EFF says the list has gender balance and is representative. Issues such skills and geographic balance was also taken into account.

EFF National Chairperson Dali Mpofu says the party’s list includes a gender and skills balance.

“There was a democratic process, all of us from the president of the EFF right down to the regional leader were subjected to a democratic process – secret ballot. That process is then determined how the list was going to be shaped, and then it was sent to our list committee. Obviously the list has got gender balance as we did even previously.”

The IFP submitted its list on Tuesday contesting all provinces. The party said in its list it wanted to see youth, skills and geographical spread.

IFP Deputy Chairperson Albert Mncwango says the party’s list has a vast representation of women and youth.

“I am happy to say that the IFP to some extent really did achieve our objectives, in terms of ensuring youth representation in all our lists and also ensuring that women are also represented. We did not only achieve 40 percent but we went even more than that, because if I am not mistaken it is almost 48 percent representation of women on our list.”

Black First Land First leader Andile Mngxitama has expressed confidence that his BLF party will be fairly represented in Parliament after the May 8th elections.

He has submitted the party’s provincial and parliamentary candidate list at the IEC offices in Pretoria. Mngxitama says land expropriation without compensation will be realised under BLF immediately after they start with the parliamentary work later in the year. He is accompanied by BLF members.

“In fact we know that even now that our enemies are hoping that the IEC will find it possible to deposit. We’ve meetings with the IEC, clarified our position and question about us were answered. We are new comers and this is our first and  historic moment. We will be in Parliament.”

The IEC has until the 19 March to advise parties of any non-compliance in respect of candidate lists.

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