Over the past few weeks the ANC has closely monitored the election campaign of the United Democratic Movement. While we have been at pains to warn parties time and again that irresponsible campaigning could compromise the determination of the freeness and fairness of the election, we fe!!ar that the United Democratic Movement (UDM) has failed to embrace the spirit of free and fair elections.
Today, Friday 21 May, the ANC has issued instructions to its attorneys to launch legal proceedings against the UDM for its activities in the Greenfields area of Gauteng province. The UDM and its supporters have in full view of the media and in the public eye:
There is a pattern of UDM intimidation and actual violence that has emerged across the country, coupled with acts of vandalism and slanderous campaigning.
In Thembisa on 14 May 1999, Mr Golden Miles Bhudu, a UDM national leader as shamelessly prepared to be photographed with an ANC poster he had defaced in contravention of the Electoral Code of Conduct.
There are numerous other instances of the defacing and destruction of ANC posters that have been brought to our attention in the Northern Province, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape and Western Cape. Charges have been laid in a number of these instances.
In Rustenburg in the Northwest Province, the UDM aligned "Workers' Mouthpiece" has consistently prevented ANC members from campaigning in the mines and have threatened violence against our members should they come near the hostels.
In Northern Cape the UDM have issued a malicious and defamatory leaflet claiming that Premier Dipico made racist statements that he will not serve under a "Hotnot" premier. This is a blatant lie and a flagrant violation of the Code of Conduct. The UDM have deceitfully coined this lie to slur the Premier of the Northern Cape in an attempt to woo Coloured voters with a racist strategy. These are methods reminiscent of the old military intelligence's dirt tricks.
In the former Transkei, in Umtata and at a number of other places in the Eastern Cape, the UDM have aggressively attempted to prevent ANC members from campaigning.
We want to remind the UDM that the ANC fought the powerful apartheid machinery, we survived the activities of the third force created to operate against us, and we have overcome assassinations and murder. Our members are resilient. Nothing will stop the ANC's forward march to entrench democracy, freedom, nation building, reconciliation, peace and development.
We warn the UDM to brace itself. We are mounting court applications for all these electoral violations. They will be spending the rest of their time and money during the rest of the election period in the courts of law.
We will compel them either to embrace the spirit of the elections or withdraw from them as a party.
Issued by The African National Congress
Elections Media Centre
Braamfontein
21 May 1999