The African Congress for Transformation (ACT) has issued a strong response to the article published by the Daily Maverick on 17 April 2024, titled “No Aces to play – Magashule’s party among five to lose critical candidate lists court bid”.
“Despite being fully aware of the facts, the Daily Maverick deliberately distorted the truth to serve their malicious purposes. ACT has officially committed to participating in the upcoming National and Provincial elections by signing an electoral pledge with the IEC.
“Furthermore, ACT will participate in the elections at both the national and provincial levels, disregarding the unwarranted alarm and disarray that the Daily Maverick is attempting to instil in our members, volunteers, and voters,” Head of Media & Communications, Mo’hau Khumalo said.
In its article, the Daily Maverick fails to address the main point, that ACT’s legal application was not intended to request the court to force the IEC to include it on the ballot paper. Rather, the Daily Maverick seems to give a false impression that ACT has been excluded from the ballot paper.
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Khumalo on Thursday confirmed that ACT has fulfilled the IEC requirement by remitting the requisite deposit and providing all the mandated signatures.
“The matter we are disputing with the IEC pertains to their online registration platform for candidates. We requested the IEC to provide us permission to submit our complete candidate lists as a solution, seeing that their system failed on 8 March 2024. The Daily Maverick is intentionally distorting our position and the court judgement to create the false impression that ACT will not be participating in the elections.
“ACT guarantees that it will participate in all three ballot papers on May 29, 2024. Furthermore, we would like to notify our voters that our appeal application has already been submitted to the Constitutional Court for a definitive decision on this matter,” Khumalo added.
Judges Phooko and Shongwe, asserted in their minority judgement that if left unaddressed, this matter “has the potential to raise doubt about whether or not the elections were free and fair.
Khumalo said the party is confident that the Constitutional Court will reach the same verdict as the minority judgement – granting ACT the opportunity to field all of its candidates.
In addition, Khumalo pointed out that, as a party, they are aware of the Daily Maverick’s “affiliation with the CIA, aiming to undermine President Jacob Zuma and Dr. Ace Magashule.”
“That has been their objective for a considerable period of time, and this reportage is merely a continuation of their predetermined plan. ACT will not be deterred by CIA agents whose objective is to ensure the ANC’s continued governance and to transfer over the country to the United States of America for manipulation by the CIA.”
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