The bench of the Electoral Court sitting in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has probed counsel representing the Democratic Alliance , in the matter between the party and President Cyril Ramaphosa.The former opposition says Ramaphosa abused his status as Head of State and public funds to influence the outcome of the May 29 elections.
Chairperson of the Court, Justice Dumisani Zondi asked if the intent should not be the test to determine the legality of Ramaphosa’s conduct. Stein, however, is of a different view. “Even if you didn’t mean for the words or in this case, your act to breach the Electoral Code. Even if you didn’t set out to do it, if the way that they were received was to influence, reasonably to have caused influence, or to have used public funds and that is sufficient for the purpose of the act. So it should be an objective test.”
Advocate Anthony Stein has argued in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, that this was done to create an uneven playing field at the polls. Stein says the argument that the President is not bound by the code is untenable. “The code is binding on the date on which the election is called to the date on which the result is declared and that is section 99a of the act and that’s important because it signifies, in accordance with the underlying purpose…” Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.
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