Judgement of ANC, DA sms matter reserved

The ANC lodged an urgent application against the DA over the text message that was sent to over 1.5 million prospective Gauteng voters.

The ANC wants the DA to retract the SMS, stop sending it and apologise to the ruling party and Zuma, or be fined up to R200 000.

Judgement on the matter was reserved until 4 April.

Given that the application was made within the context of an election and electioneering, the ANC argument was not based on defamation, hence the court was adopting the role of an electoral court.

Speaking outside court, ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said the DA was misleading the public.

“This was misleading and [a] false accusation of the president,” he said.

“There is no such finding in the public protector’s report that the president stole money from the public purse. The public protector says… Zuma built his homestead by using his own money… what [the] DA said was not only false but defamatory to President Zuma.”

According to Mthembu, the SMS sent by the DA was a violation of the electoral act and the party must be reigned in to act in accordance with the electoral law.

“We can’t afford our electoral environment to be poisoned by lies, therefore the court must stop the DA so that all of us can be governed by the same rules and laws,” Mthembu added.

But the DA’s Gauteng premier candidate Mmusi Maimane said the party stands by its move.

“The money was taken away from projects that had to do with housing and inner city regeneration. When you take money out of that then it becomes clear that the money was stolen.”

The DA believes that any reasonable person who actually read the Nkandla report would conclude that public money was stolen, Maimane insisted.