The MK party has threatened to approach the courts if IEC Commissioner Janet Love does not resign from the commission.The league accuses Love of being biased against its leader, former President Jacob Zuma who survived an attempt to have him removed from the ballot paper for the May 29 National and Provincial Elections.Scores of the league’s members marched on the electoral body’s headquarters in Centurion on Friday also demanding that the commission make public its dealings with NGOs and media companies the league believe are questionable as well as that it not count the votes electronically.
“We demand that IEC Commissioner Janet Love resign with immediate effect. Janet, Love you don’t know your job, you are not an electoral commissioner, you are just a leader of a political party and your continued presence in the IEC affects the credibility of the commission, you must resign with immediate effect,” said Convener of MK’s Women’s League Mabel Ghweqane.
The league gave the IEC seven days to respond and warned it may head to court if it does not get its way.The IEC already dismissed the call for Love to step down saying there’s no legal requirement for commissioners to even declare their political affiliations and that the claims of bias are unsubstantiated.While conceding that this is the case in law, member of MK party’s National Executive Committee Des Van Royen who once served as cooperative governance minister said Love’s case is different as, according to him and the MK party, has demonstrated bias and a lack of impartiality.
“Among some of our senior comrades who have been leading the struggle of our people, of late they seem to be very close to white capital and my problem is that the wealth that capital has was made the sweat and blood of our people. Now our leaders sit on the boards of these companies, they are betraying the struggle and tainting their own credentials, Love is one of those, she is working for them. We have never had a problem with the IEC and they are right that commissioners don’t have to disclose their political affiliation but a person like Janet Love as one of those struggle heroes who have decided to abandon the struggle is using her influence in the IEC to frustrate the MK,” said van Royen.
Love was also a combatant of the original armed wing of the ANC uMkhontho weSizwe and served in the party’s national executive committee alongside both former President Jacob Zuma and his successor Cyril Ramaphosa