MEDIA RELEASE
2024-04-29

SUMMARY: The Labour Party of South Africa (Labour Party) has received directives from the Constitutional Court of South Africa (ConCourt). The directives include a set-down date for the hearing to be on 8 May 2024. The Party shows how a shocking total of 63 unrepresented parties failed to upload their information to the internet portal of the Independent Elections Commission (IEC), indicating that it would pose severe prejudice to voters if the parties of their democratic choice are excluded. The answering affidavits of the IEC, the State President and the further respondents were directed to be submitted by 30 April 2024.

Early Thursday (25 April 2024) evening, the Labour Party’s legal team received directives from the registrar of the ConCourt states that the “Chief Justice has issued the following directives”, mentioning inter alia that the matter is “set down for hearing on Wednesday, 8 May 2024” and that “respondents must file answering affidavits by Tuesday, 30 April 2024”.

“As the Labour Party, we welcome that our urgent application has been set down by the Court”, said Labour Party Secretariat Krister Janse van Rensburg. “Still, it is ironic that this would mean that a dispute which arose on 8 March 2024 is only fully ventilated exactly two months later, namely on 8 May 2024”, he added.

The cause and focus of this litigation are the online portal of the IEC that malfunctioned in the final hours of the Labour Party (and around 62 other unrepresented parties) being in the process of uploading the supporting documents required by the recent amendments to the Electoral Act. The Party has consistently put forward that the system is untested for the new requirements, and that it is therefore not “fit for purpose”

On 9 March 2024, the IEC issued a statement indicating that at least 101 unrepresented parties made submissions via the online portal. Of these, a mere 38 parties were successful in ensuring that they contest the elections. According to our calculations based on articles and statistics appearing on the IEC’s website, this means that a shocking total of 63 parties were unsuccessful. It is fair to say that they had sufficient support to start with their online submissions, but they were unable to do so via the online portal, by the IEC’s deadline. This calculates to a failure rate of almost 63%.

“A failure rate of 63% for any system is totally unacceptable”, said Van Rensburg. “Even more when one realises that these are not mere tests or exams, but political parties complying with legislation in order to participate in the elections”, he said. “The mere fact that a minority of parties did manage to finish uploading does not logically mean that the systems were working for everybody, or that it was the fault of the parties that failed”, he added. “It is a commonly accepted principle of democracy that regulators put in place by the state should not make it unnecessarily difficult for parties to participate and voters to vote”, said Van Rensburg.

The court directives also once again, like in the case at the Electoral Court*, combines the applications of other political parties with that of the Labour Party, even though there are some key differences between these applications, both in terms of content and in terms of approach.

“While we do believe that it may very well be a limitation when our case with its unique features is combined with that of other parties, it is also true that there is a golden thread of simplicity in the fact that all of us experienced similar problems with the IEC’s malfunctioning portal”, he said.

At our press conference held on Thursday [25 April 2024] afternoon at Wanderers Club, we announced that an impressive total of 37 political parties have indicated their wish to support our application”, said Van Rensburg. “When you let the 63% failure rate of the [IEC’s online] portal sink in, one speculates that there might be even more parties that support us as the matter progresses”, he said.

“We remain confident that we have a strong case, and our prospects are firmly grounded on two legs: Firstly, it is about the clear prejudice faced by new parties being forced to use an untested and malfunctioning online portal and, perhaps even more compelling, we have the fact that the IEC and Electoral Court delayed the hearing of our matter by close to a month”, he said. “It would be very difficult for the court to turn a blind eye to the severe prejudice caused to not only new parties, but also to the voting public of South Africa who are effectively robbed of supporting the parties of their choice for five long years”, Van Rensburg concluded.

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*[More details regarding these legal cases can be found in previous media releases appearing on the Labour Party’s website, www.labourparty.org.za.]

For more information or to arrange interviews, please send a request to secretariat@labourparty.org.za. 

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