IEC deregisters political parties
2010-06-22 16:45
More than 20 political parties have been deregistered by the
Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for failing to renew their
registrations.
According to a general notice published in the government gazette,
the 22 parties include Thami kaPlaatjie’s Pan Africanist Movement, Professor
Themba Sono’s Alliance of Free Democrats (AFD) and the Federal Alliance, which
retired rugby administrator Louis Luyt led a decade ago.
KaPlaatjie, the Pan-Africanist Congress’s former secretary-general,
deflected to the ANC last month and Sono is now area head in human resources and
leadership at the University of SA’s Graduate School of Business
Leadership.
Sono was a member of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which he left
citing “poor race relations within the party” before joining Patricia De Lille’s
Independent Democrats (ID).
He was the ID’s national deputy president before floor crossing to
form the AFD. The parties were deregistered due to failure to renew their
registrations by the end of January, as required by the Electoral Commission
Act.
Although the act requires the parties’ leaders to declare that they
have not been dissolved and that they were continuing to operate, all 22 parties
failed to do so.
Two minor parties have had their registrations cancelled.
Political parties not represented in Parliament, provincial
legislatures and at local government are required to annually renew their
registrations.
All the parties were registered between February 1999 and October
last year. The level of registration for 19 of the 22 parties was national while
the remaining three campaigned at local government level.
- City Press