Arise South Africa has hauled the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to the Electoral Court over what it terms as its “unwarranted exclusion” from the National Ballot paper ahead of the May 2024 polls.
The new political entrant forms part of five political parties that have taken the IEC to the specialist court on an urgent basis in a virtual hearing on Monday, 15 April 2024.
Arise SA argues that its removal took place on the 27th of March without notice or explanation. It further adds that its bid to seek an explanation from the IEC over the exclusion was attributed to an “administrative error”.
Counsel on behalf of Arise SA, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC elaborates, “We are the ones who came and said why there are these discrepancies and we objected or protested. Then they said on the 27th, oops we actually should not have put you on the national list and they removed us. So in other words, if we had not raised this objection or protest, we would still be on the national list. They say no, we made a mistake, we should not have put you on the national list on the 26th – it was an administrative error and it is not explained what the administrative error is. It’s a bland thing that says administrative error. We don’t know, did the computers fail? Did somebody put the documents in the wrong place?….What actually happened? We are just told it is an administrative error.”
