Mashaba to appeal IEC’s decision to reject ActionSA registration

Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA plans to appeal the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) decision to reject their application to register as a political party.

On Monday, the IEC informed ActionSA that it had rejected their application for registration as a political party after Mashaba lodged the registration documents earlier in September.

In a statement, Mashaba said the IEC’s decision was based on a perceived similarity with another political party and the use of the South African flag in their logo.

“We have already written to the IEC, initiating our right to appeal their decision as a result of its incorrect application of the law.

“We regard the IEC to have acted irrationally in their decision. We submit that our identifying features remain sufficiently different from the Party of Action (POA), a political party that has never contested elections before despite registering. As a matter of fact, POA changed their name on social media platforms the day after the launch of ActionSA to Party of Action SA – seemingly to make their case for similarity.”

Mashaba noted that the IEC had in one instance allegedly demonstrated that the African Independent Congress was allowed to register despite its far greater similarities to the ANC, and this would form part of his case to appeal the decision.

Describing the IEC’s decision as inconsistent, he said the Chapter 9 institution had no legal authority to decline an application outside of its specific parameters of section 16 of the Electoral Commission Act of 1996, which dealt specifically with a political party’s identity.

The IEC’s rational to their decision indicated that it had applied legislation to ActionSA that was not applied to other political parties whose logo’s draw inspiration from the South African flag.

“This is a clear case of the IEC acting beyond its legal mandate.”

ActionSA has instructed its legal team to file an appeal and if necessary proceed to court in order to defend its registration.

Its leader Herman Mashaba quickly got on social media to address followers, including supporters to not lose sleep over the decision, and that he would tackle the matter head-on.

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