The Electoral Court has received a written complaint implicating Mosotho Moepya, the chair of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), of conspiring with ANC members to sabotage the opposition party, African Transformation Movement (ATM).
The complaint was submitted to the court on Thursday by a former ANC researcher in the Western Cape legislature, advocate Winston Erasmus, through his lawyers, SAM Attorneys.
In the complaint, which he prefaced with the words “no person may abuse a position of power, privilege or influence the conduct or outcome of an election”,
Erasmus alleges that Moepya and several ANC officials hatched a plot to deregister the ATM prior to the 2019 national elections.
He asserts that the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, under the leadership of former president Jacob Zuma, is currently under attack with the usage of the same script.
According to the complaint which Sunday World has seen, Erasmus stated that the primary reason the ANC targeted the ATM was the false belief that Zuma and former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule were behind the party’s formation.
He alleged that Moepya, whom he was told was just “a contact person at the IEC,” was part of a meeting that took place at the City Lodge Hotel in OR Tambo International Airport on May 4, 2019, where the plot to sabotage the ATM was birthed and discussed.
Erasmus further told the Electoral Court in his complaint that he covered the costs of the meeting’s hotel room.
He included his bank records in the complaint, which he said were evidence of his version of events.
He alleged that two former ANC members of parliament allegedly organised the meeting.
They are, according to Erasmus, Leonard Ramatlakana, a member of parliament’s police standing committee at the time, and Hlomane Patrick Chauke, the chairperson of the portfolio committee on home affairs, which oversaw the IEC.
At the time of the meeting, he said, the ANC had already filed an objection with the IEC against the ATM’s registration.
“Ramatlakana then asked Mosotho to assist the president (Ramaphosa),” Erasmus wrote.
Erasmus told Sunday World on Friday that “Chauke summoned Moepya to the meeting like a schoolboy to the principal’s -office”.
Erasmus said that upon arrival at the hotel, “the contact introduced himself as Mosotho”.
“At the time, I did not know he was Mosotho Moepya, a commissioner of the Independent Electoral Commission.”
He alleged that Ramatlakana told Moepya in that meeting that President Cyril Ramaphosa was “very unhappy with the manner in which the ATM was registered,” as the party was the brainchild of Zuma and Magashule, conceived after the 2017 ANC elective conference, where Ramaphosa was elected as the party president.
Erasmus alleged that Ramatlakana told Moepya that Zuma and Magashule “plotted to use millions of church members to effect a regime change project against the president”.
Church groups, particularly the South African Council of Messianic Churches in Christ, helped form the ATM.
He also alleged that Moepya “confirmed he would assist us, thereby assisting the president, whose concern was conveyed to him”.
“Mosotho advised we should withdraw our Electoral Court application and -submit another objection, this time to the commissioners of the IEC commission, where he would assist.
“Mosotho asked if we were engaging the judge and said we must also engage the judge.”
Erasmus further alleged Ramatlakana had confirmed the involvement in the plot of another judge, whose name appears in his complaint. He told Sunday World on Friday that he decided to file a complaint this week because he realised that the “ANC is again using Mosotho to sabotage the MK
Party”.
“When Mosotho rushed to appeal the Electoral Court decision on the MK Party matter without waiting for the apex decision, it was déjà vu for me.
“It is the same script we used then; it is just different players. I am still a member of the ANC, and I will not join another party.
“The truth has to be told to protect our fragile democracy,” Erasmus said.
He told Sunday World that the ANC had put aside R2-million for the operation to deregister ATM.
“We had a R2-million budget, R500 000 went to the lawyers, R300 000 went to fund the bogus SACMCC where a decision was taken not to register as a political party and the rest was pocketed by those involved,” he said.
Chauke confirmed that he and Ramatlakana attended the meeting with Moepya, as Erasmus reported, but claimed it was part of his mandate as then chairman of the portfolio committee on home affairs. “We didn’t discuss a plot to sabotage any political party, as far as I can remember.”
Ramatlakana couldn’t be reached for comment.
IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela said after indicating she was awaiting input from Moepya: “The Electoral Commission denies all allegations against its officials and itself.”
