Bid to bar BLF registration
BLACK First Land First (BLF) has dismissed Freedom Front Plus’s (FF+) court bid to have the party deregistered through the Electoral Court and barred from taking part in the 2019 elections as a “desperate move”.
This comes after FF+ announced it had approached the court to have BLF removed from the ballot paper, saying the IEC’s approval of the BLF as a registered party was irregular, illegal and invalid.
The party’s court argument is that BLF unfairly discriminates against other races by stating that its membership is only open to black people.
FF+ leader Pieter Groenewald said: “South Africa’s Constitution states in section 1 that the South African state is based on four core values, of which non-racialism is one. This makes it clear the IEC has made a big mistake. The FF+ asks the court to rectify this.”
BLF has, however, vowed that it will defeat FF Plus’s “attempts” to frustrate their party and its cause.
Party leader Andile Mngxitama said FF+ represented “land thieves” terrified that finally a party that represented black people was coming to take their land, and was going to Parliament.
“This is a desperate act by an organisation that represents land thieves to try to stop us from going to Parliament,” said Mngxitama.
He attacked the basis of FF+’s legal argument that the party should be barred because it opened its membership to blacks only, and therefore was racist.
“How can black people be racist in their own country when they have been oppressed for more than 350 years? That is rubbish. Anyone who says a black person can be racist is stupid. We will meet them in court, defeat them there and in Parliament.
“We are still going to take their land too,” said Mngxitama.