Herman Mashaba’s ActionSA ready to battle IEC in court to retain party identity

By Bernice Maune

Michael Beaumont,  chairperson of ActionSA, told eNCA the party would put up a fight and insist on retaining its identity. His comments come after the IEC rejected the party’s application to officially register to enable it to contest the 2021 municipal elections.

“We’re very disappointed by that idea because we do not hold the view where voters would be confused in an election between the two political organisations. I think it’s important to communicate that while the logos and colours are sufficiently different, to allow for people to differentiate the IEC has also been inconsistent in the application of this law.

“Because you remember it was the IEC that admitted that the African Independent Congress which is similar to the ANC are far greater than this particular instance. So we believed they have erred in their judgement and we believe this
is a matter that should be dealt with in terms of our repute,” said Beaumont.

In a statement, the party said the IEC was not practical and fair in its application of election based 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.

Read also: SLR: Can Herman Mashaba grab voters from the ANC? Five tips from afar

“It is a fact that there are over 630 political parties in South Africa, of various registration statuses. The notion that similarities exist is a natural consequence of this situation, but cannot be seen to rise to the required level of “voters not being able to notice the distinction…” The IEC’s decision in this matter is regrettable and inconsistent.”

In addition, Action4SA says it has instructed its legal teams to file an appeal and, if necessary, proceed to court in order to defend its legitimate registration.

“Our logo is derived from The People’s Dialogue, a process in which millions of South Africans legitimised the formation of ActionSA. We have filed a trademark application with the Registrar of Trademarks and we will defend the identity of ActionSA without hesitation,” the party stated.

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