IEC urged to separate ANC and AIC on ballot papers

Parliament – The Electoral Commission has been urged to separate the African National Congress from the little known African Independent Congress on the ballot papers.

This is to avoid confusion with voters, an ANC MP said in Parliament on Tuesday.

The AIC, which has the same colours as the ruling party and was directly on top of the ANC in the ballot paper, won 97 462 votes in the last election.

This resulted in the party getting three seats in the National Assembly.

ANC MP Dineo Raphuti said it was unfair that the "other party had plagiarised their colours" and had a similar name.

This, she said, led to serious confusion and the ANC losing out on votes that were mistakenly cast.

"It was totally unfair. It was very confusing, especially for our voters. As the ANC we could have upped our votes."

The IEC's Rev Bongani Finca said they had gone back to the drawing board to see how they could avoid the same situation.

This could mean parties would have to draw numbers and be placed in that order, instead of alphabetically, he said.

But this was still a proposal and would have to first be approved.

This article first appeared on News24 – see here.