NFP won't go down without a fight - chairperson

22 July 2016

Durban – The National Freedom Party will not go down without a fight, the party’s acting national chairperson, Bheki Gumbi, said on Friday.

The party said it would fight its disqualification from the 2016 local government elections until August 3.

Gumbi said the Electoral Court had confirmed that the party would again appear in court on July 29, so that it could present new evidence.

He said the party had taken the matter back to the Electoral Court after the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa [IEC] disqualified it from participating in the elections after it failed to pay its registration by the June 2 deadline.

"The fight is still on. We will neither give up, nor surrender. This battle continues until the last hour of the election day. We don't want our members and supporters to lose hope because of the date we have been given by the court. They must not despair, as we view this as a blessing in disguise,” Gumbi said.

He claimed that the reason why the court had given the party the July 29 date was because political parties, traditional leaders, NGO’s and religious leaders, were interested in the matter.

"As the leadership of the NFP, we still maintain and believe that we will contest the August 3 elections. It is for this reason we make a plea to our members to exercise restraint and not do anything that might jeopardise our chances.

“Our legal team has prepared well and, with the new evidence that we will present in court, we strongly believe that we will participate and fiercely contest the elections,” said Gumbi.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.