Gatvol Capetonian can’t contest elections because of their ‘offensive’ name

The Independent Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) has told political formation Gatvol Capetonian that it will not be allowed to contest the 2019 elections because their name has “vulgar and unsavoury connotations”.

The Mail & Guardian reports that although the commission recognises that “gatvol” may literally just mean being “fed up”, the word “may offend the intrinsic values of the constitution and cause offence to sections of society”.

The group reportedly initially appealed the decision, but then accepted it.

Gatvol Capetonian, which is comfortable with being described as a coloured nationalist formation that wants the Western Cape to secede from the rest of South Africa, now reportedly plans to offer its support to other parties that support its views, such as the Cape Party and others, particularly those calling for the Western Cape to become independent.

Gatvol Capetonian spokesperson Fadiel Adams told the Mail & Guardian the influx of people from the Eastern Cape “is killing us”.

When the formation of Gatvol Capetonian was announced last year in June, Adams said they were calling for “all people not born in the Western Cape pre-94 to sell their assets and go home”.

When accused of only aiming at black people with this call, Adams said: “I don’t know what the demographic is, but if it is, so be it.”

Adams and his organisation believe the so-called coloured community in the Western Cape is “growing exponentially poorer as a direct result of the influx from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape”.

Of the largely black Eastern Cape community that is based in the Western Cape, Adams says: “They are a strain on the infrastructure. Our trains aren’t riding because they weren’t designed to cope with this amount of people.” He also said queues were now too long in hospitals.

Asked if he was using the same rhetoric that had landed Premier Helen Zille in trouble back when she said that those coming from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape were “refugees”, Adams replied: “I very, very rarely agree with Helen Zille, but on this day, I will.”

Adams believes that so-called coloured Capetonians are being overlooked for jobs in favour of black South Africans.

“Last time I read the Freedom Charter, it said that South Africa belongs to all who live in it,” he said, adding “except if you live in the Western Cape and happen to be brown”.

“We want an independent Western Cape,” he said. “We’ve been made to feel apart from the rest of the country anyway. We might as well pack up, close our borders and have our own country.”

When they launched, their Facebook slogan proclaimed that “the only good politician is a dead politician”.

(Compiled by Charles Cilliers)

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