ANC, AIC confusion claim

THE African Independent Party has been accused of winning votes by assimilating the image of the ANC in order to confuse voters.

The AIC won 63 seats nationally during last week’s local government elections.

Like the ANC, the party’s colours are green, black and gold, but it has an additional, secondary green colour.

The ANC is concerned that the A at the beginning and C at the end of the name could easily have confused ANC voters to vote for the wrong party.

AIC deputy president Lulama Maxwell Ntshayisa said his party won three seats in the eThekwini Municipality and a seat in each of the Mandeni, Mtubatuba, Mhlabuyalingana and Kokstad municipalities.

Before the elections President Jacob Zuma told ANC supporters in Inchanga to be careful of the AIC as the party had in previous elections “confused” ANC voters.

Mistake

He said if they happened to vote for the AIC by mistake, they should ask the Independent Electoral Commission presiding officer to rectify the mistake.

However, ANC Youth League provincial secretary Thanduxolo Sabela said some ANC voters did not heed Zuma’s warning. He said the ANC should have a word with the AIC for “confusing voters”.

Sabela said it was a concern that the AIC received votes while it did not even have election posters and campaigns in many municipalities in the province.

“When our people were looking for black, green and gold they saw this thing with an A and C at the end and concluded that ‘this is what I am looking for’. Only a person who does not want to reason would really believe that the AIC had got any form of support.”

He said the AIC did not care about the voters as it was formed to fight demarcation in Matatiele.

However, Ntshayisa, one of three party MPs, said they would not accept a meeting if the ANC “comes with an arrogance of saying we stole their votes”.

“We will never meet with them. We are the alternative. If they say we were only formed for the demarcation matter, they are lying. If Matatiele were to be redemarcated to KZN it would mean the AIC would have no reason to exist. Demarcation was just an immediate call,” he said.

Instead of having a wheel and spear as in the ANC logo, the AIC had a shield and knobkierie. “Our shield is to prevent the ANC spear from stabbing people with hunger, from stabbing people with unemployment, from stabbing people with inequality. We are protecting people from the ANC spear,” said Ntshayisa.

He said since the AIC’s formation in 2005 it had grown out of Matatiele. In 2011 it had got seven seats, whereas in this year’s elections the number had surged to 63 nationally in 53 municipalities which it had contested.

Ntshayisa said his party had used small meetings, radio and social networks to campaign. He said it was quite feasible that there were people who voted for the ANC by mistake instead of the AIC.

“A Stellenbosch University professor said this thing of saying people voted for AIC while intending to vote for the ANC was undermining intelligence of the South African voters.”