We are going to parliament, BLF announces shortly before IEC deadline

Controversial party Black First Land First (BLF) arrived at the Independent Electoral Commission’s Elections House to submit their party list, register to vote and finalise the payment of their election deposit late on Wednesday.

The deadline for all parties was 5pm. The party claims they crowdfunded their deposit fee.

Party leader Andile Mngxitama led BLF members to Elections House, chanting contentious slogans such as “one settler, one bullet” along the way.

Mngxitama spoke outside the building, saying that land expropriation without compensation would be realised following the May 8 elections.

He also reinforced his policy that the BLF is a strictly black party and white people are not permitted to join it.

BLF is going to parliament!!!!! Iyoyoyo!!!

— ZaneleLwana (@ZaneleLwana) March 13, 2019

Mngxithama says as the party goes into the elections they would like to reiterate that: “We do not accept white people into our party… we made this clear even to the IEC when we registered with them as a party”. pic.twitter.com/FSQekJMGIk

— Juniour Khumalo (@JKwritingz) March 13, 2019

https://twitter.com/lizTandwa/status/1105829121693757440

Whether the party would succeed in their attempts to raise enough money for the elections was called into question after a group called Sakeliga, who describe themselves as an independent business community, attached the party’s bank account last month.

Sakeliga was originally known as AfriBusiness and was assisted by Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum with “expertise and operational support” as per an agreement for the first five years of their existance, from 2011 to 2016.

Sakeliga confirmed last week in a statement that they had attached the BLF’s account in order to recover an amount of R68,000. The cost order came from an interdict Sakeliga was granted by the High Court in Pretoria in a ruling that prohibited the BLF from inciting land grabs.

Trade union Solidarity also reported Mngxitama to the IEC asking for it to remove the organisation from its list of parties following his controversial comments at a Potchestroom rally calling for five white people to be killed for every black person.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) launched a petition to prevent the party from contesting elections.

A campaign to raise the funds for the party’s deposit was later removed from crowdfunding platform BackABuddy, which the party blamed on “the Oppenheimers” at the time.

BackABuddy’s Catherine du Plooy told the Citizen that the removal of the campaign “had nothing to do with the Oppenheimers”, as alleged by the BLF, and added that it was removed because it “did not comply with our terms and conditions”.

READ MORE: DA launches petition to stop BLF from contesting 2019 elections

The party continued to raise funds by promoting their crowdfunding campaign on their website and urging supporters to deposit donations into their bank account.

At a press conference last year, Mngxitama said the BLF had neither money nor benefactors such as Adriano Mazzotti, who paid the EFF’s registration fee in 2014.

“We are broke. We represent the broke and the poor. We don’t have your Johann Rupert. Your Guptas, before I even spoke to them, you chased them out,” Mngxitama said.

However, he said the party had relied on crowdfunding to amass the deposit required by the IEC for it to contest elections next year and that, through pledges and money in their bank account, the BLF had raised R200,000 of the more than R600,000 required by the IEC.

Mngxitama said R200,000 would at least qualify the BLF to contest the elections at national level.

He said the movement would not take money from white people, white monopoly capital or even from black people who might have certain “conditions attached”.

(Additional reporting by Makhosandile Zulu and ANA)

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