MK Party takes SABC to court over use of ‘GNU’ term

Umkhonto weSizwe (MK Party) has confirmed that it is going ahead with its urgent application, submitted by the party’s president Jacob Zuma, which seeks to compel the public broadcaster – SABC – “to cease referring to the DA/ANC Coalition as a ‘Government of National Unity’ (GNU).”

The matter is set to be addressed in the Johannesburg High Court on Tuesday.

“Despite the Umkhonto weSizwe Party’s request for an opposing affidavit, the [South African Broadcasting Corporation] SABC has not responded, reinforcing the need for the court to grant the relief sought by Umkhonto weSizwe,” the MK Party stated.

The move comes after DA federal council chair Helen Zille’s comments at a recent public engagement hosted by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation where she characterised the so called GNU as a grand coalition between the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC).

“So from the beginning, Cyril Ramaphosa came up with this notion of a government of national unity, which he thought would be a better way of selling the concept of coalition to his own party.

“Now this, of course, is not a government of national unity, because a government of national unity brings all parties together, which would have had to include the EFF and the MK party, which it did not. But it still gave the president the fig leaf he needed to bring in all sorts of smaller parties to say, ‘I’m not in a coalition with the DA.’ Now the truth is that we are actually in a coalition because a coalition means that if a party withdraws from the coalition, the government falls,” said Zille.

On that basis, the MK Party argues that “the SABC should not serve as a conduit for the Democratic Alliance and the ANC of Cyril Ramaphosa, as this misrepresentation undermines the integrity of Section 3(1a) of the Broadcasting Act 4 of 1999 and the principles outlined in the SABC Charter regarding Editorial Independence.”

It urged the public broadcaster to uphold its duty to accurately represent political alliances without misleading the citizens.

“We remain committed to defending the editorial independence of the SABC and ensuring that the South African public is not misled by state-affiliated entities,” the MK Party maintained.

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