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The GOOD Party today filed its answering affidavit opposing the DA’s application in the Electoral Court to declare its candidate list unlawful.

The Party’s Proportional Representation list, with one named candidate in each of the 25 municipalities it is contesting, complied with the law and was certified by the IEC. The DA’s application, seeking the exclusion of GOOD, ActionSA, the EFF and MK from the PR ballot, or to restrict the number of seats they may fill, reflects bad faith desperation to manufacture legal technicalities and voter confusion, and subvert voters’ choices.

Neither the Municipal Electoral Act nor the Municipal Structures Act prescribes a minimum number of names on a party list. The Municipal Structures Act expressly provides that if a party wins more seats than it has names on its list the IEC must notify the party and ask it to add eligible candidates within two days. The "honest underestimation” test on which the DA relies is gobbledygook that appears nowhere in the Act.

Before submitting its lists, GOOD asked the IEC in writing whether single-candidate lists were permissible. 

There are legitimate reasons for single-candidate lists. Supplementing lists after the election enable parties to reward ward candidates who drew strong support, recognise excellent campaign work, match expertise to responsibilities - and, ultimately, maximise the quality of public representatives. The DA has itself filed single-name lists in 12 municipalities…

GOOD will defend its lists in court; they comply with the law as parliament wrote it, not as the DA would prefer it to have been written. 

Speaking of which...   

Re-scrutinising the relevant legislation in preparing GOOD's answering affidavit raised questions about the lawfulness of the registration in Johannesburg of the DA’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille. GOOD has asked its legal team to advise whether Zille’s registration in Johannesburg complies with sections 7(3) and 8(3) of the Electoral Act and, if not, what remedies are available. 

Section 7(3) defines ordinary residence as the home where a person normally lives and regularly returns to after a temporary absence. Ms Zille has made her home in Cape Town for more than 40 years. By her own public account:  

•   her husband, his church and their retirement village are in Cape Town;
•   she returns home regularly; and
•   she will not commit to staying in Johannesburg if she loses.

Section 8(3) requires a voter to be registered only in the ward where they are ordinarily resident.

Zille’s presence in Johannesburg looks suspiciously like a temporary absence from Cape Town, where she ordinarily resides, not a change of hometown.

The thorough scrutiny of lists is good. If GOOD is advised that Zille’s candidacy is unlawful, it will be challenged in the appropriate legal forum.

Issued by the GOOD Party