DA criticised for ‘dishonest campaigning’

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is being challenged over its insinuated claim of an early victory based on voter registration.

The DA announced over the weekend that it had outperformed the ANC in new voter registrations and re-registrations.

“The most recent registration data highlights the DA’s success in securing the largest share of new and re-registrations,” it stated.

This after the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) said voter registration did not record political party preference at a briefing on the results of the second registration weekend drive yesterday.

IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo cautioned that it was important for leaders to be careful with the statements they make so as not to end up being investigated by the IEC for offences.

IEC commissioner Dr Nomsa Masuku said it was essential to clarify that a person registered to be on the voters’ roll and did not register for a particular political party.

According to the DA, between 23 November last year and 5 January, the IEC recorded 162 598 new and re-registrations.

“Of these, 59 689 were for the DA, or nearly 37%, and only 33.8% were for the ANC.

“This success shows what is possible this weekend and on election day,” the DA said.

Prof Ntsikelelo Breakfast, Nelson Mandela University’s director of the centre for security, peace and conflict resolution, said of all the political parties, one did not expect this of the DA.

Breakfast said this was a very unfortunate campaigning strategy because it was dishonest.

“That is misleading on purpose. I think they just want to deepen the argument that the ANC will lose power in the upcoming general election,” he said.

However, the DA stood by the figures they provided.

The party’s head of elections, Greg Krumbock, said the DA established these figures from the voters’ roll, which is made available to all political parties virtually every month by the IEC.

Parties were thus able to compare the current voters’ roll to the previous one and look at the differences.

“Therefore, we took that voters’ role that came out in the first week of January and we compared it to the one we had in the second half of November.

“Obviously there’s a difference – which comes from the new registrations and re-registrations,” Krumbock said.