By Zukile Majova
Political Editor
A controversial constitutional requirement for new political parties to collect thousands of signatures to be able to participate in the elections was child’s play for Build One SA (Bosa).
The party led by former DA leader Mmusi Maimane submitted over 140,000 signatures to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on Thursday — more than double the required threshold of 60,000 signatures.
With more than 140,000 signatures and election campaign foot soldiers nationwide Maimane said Bosa’s target of getting one million votes in the 29 May elections was possible.
Depending on voter turnout, that would amount to about 5% of the national share of the vote and be equivalent to roughly 20 seats in the National Assembly.
“Between now and the elections, Bosa will be deploying over 1,000 full-time Bosa champions who will be going from community to community, door to door, house to house to ensure we mobilise the people,” he said.
“I’m telling you now that we are pursuing over a million votes. If we can get these signatures now, wait until election day. We will show you South Africans who are committed to voting for Bosa,” said Maimane outside the IEC head office in Centurion.
Rise Mzansi, another new political kid on the block, also cruised through to the ballot paper and will be contesting in all the nine provinces.
The party founded by former business journalist and newspaper editor Songezo Zibi said it collected 112,000 signatures and paid R750,000 into the IEC’s account as its election deposit.
Last week, Change Starts Now leader Roger Jardine announced that his party would not participate in the election because of the thousands of signatures required for new political parties to register with the IEC.
Several new parties have said the requirement is unfair to new political parties because existing political parties do not have to submit signatures.
The number of signatures submitted by both Bosa and Rise Mzansi exceeds the 78,000 votes won by the UDM in the 2019 elections.
Other parties that are in Parliament despite getting few votes include the African Transformation Movement (76,000), Good (70,000), African Independent Congress (48,000), Cope (47,000), PAC (32,000) and Al Jama-ah (31,000).
Pictured above: Bosa leader Mmusi Maimane begins the party’s quest for one million votes.
Image source: X
