Concourt ruling a blow for ACT, other smaller parties

THE Constitutional Court judgment handed down on Friday against the African Congress for Transformation (ACT) will make it difficult for the party to have a seat in the National Assembly, according to an analyst.

Analyst Michael Atkins said the ruling meant that ACT would lose the ability to get regional votes from their supporters in other areas such as the Free State or North West, which would make it harder for them to obtain National Assembly seats.

“ACT are on the national ballot, but the only regional ballot they are on is the Western Cape. However, they are contesting provincial legislatures in the Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, North West and Northern Cape.

“A small point about their loss is that the Concourt did not in the end grant ACT leave to appeal the Electoral Court decision.

“This means that the court did not decide on the merits of their case that the IEC candidate and signature submission systems did not function correctly in the final days before the March 8 deadline,” Atkins said.

On Friday, the apex court ruled in favour of the Electoral Commission of South Africa, which found that the online candidate nomination system functioned without issues at the relevant time.

This was after ACT and two other parties blamed their failure to submit the required signatures on time on the IEC’S online portal which, they allege, malfunctioned.

However, the IEC opposed the three applications before the apex court and submitted that if the court granted the relief sought, the IEC would not be in a position to deliver free and fair elections on May 29. The other parties that were denied an extension were the newly formed Labour Party and the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats.