The African Independent Congress (AIC) is threatening to take the IEC to court if the commission does not fix the current format of the ballot paper.
The party accuses the IEC of not sticking to what was agreed on by the affected parties. This emanates from the 2016 Local Government Elections concerns about similar party logos and acronyms on the ballot paper.
The parties identified by the IEC as similar are the ANC, AIC and APC. After the signing of the IEC Code of Conduct last week, there was a draw that was conducted to separate these parties from each other on the ballot. But AIC president Mandla Galo is not happy about the ballot paper saying it is not what the affected parties agreed on.
“Three parties were called to a toss kind of a draw where it was indicated that the party that receives a bigger number than other parties will retain its position on the ballot. The African Independent Congress received number 72 on that draw which means therefore that the AIC is going to retain its position. We were highly appalled when we saw this kind of a specimen.”
The IEC says they will take a position on the matter when they have met with the AIC.
IEC Deputy CEO Masego Sheburi elaborates,”I would not say their complaint does not hold water until we have spoken to them. And if they intend to take legal action that’s not what they had communicated to us. We hope that we can explain this matter and deal with it amicably with the AIC. We will today formulate a response to be sent to the political party.”
