Ramaphosa's pre-election address to nation was lawful, says Electoral Court

When President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation three days before the election, he was doing what the constitution required him to do: to promote national unity and advance the interests of the republic, said the Electoral Court on Monday. 

“We disagree with the ... the DA that the speech was disguised electioneering,” said the court. It dismissed the DA’s application to order Ramaphosa to pay a fine of R200,000 for breaching the Electoral Code of Conduct and the Electoral Act. 

The DA had also originally asked for an order that the ANC’s votes in the national election be reduced by 1%, but this was later abandoned. 

The court — made up of chairperson Dumisani Zondi and acting judges Leicester Adams and Seena Yacoob — first looked at how to interpret item 9(2)(e) of the code and section 87(1)(g) of the act. The code prohibits people from abusing a position of power to influence an election. The act prohibits the use of public funds for political campaigning. 

The DA argued that when the president’s speech lauded the achievements of the “sixth administration”, particularly on issues that were of concern to voters such as gender-based violence and load-shedding, he breached these provisions because this was political campaigning. 

The court said the purpose of the code and act was to prohibit conduct that may undermine the conditions for free and fair elections. But at the same time, the code and act should not be interpreted in a way that would unduly inhibit the president’s constitutional obligations, said the judges.

The president had duties under the constitution, including to promote the unity of the nation, said the judgment. He also had functions under national legislation. 

The DA had argued that any address of the nation “at this critical point of an election period, which deals with issues that are part of the highly contested political terrain” would fall foul of the code and act, said the court. 

But this interpretation “must be avoided”, said the court. It was wrong because it had the potential to unduly inhibit the president from discharging his constitutional obligations. 

The speech itself was to be looked at from the point of view of a “reasonable reader”, said the court. “We agree with the president’s submission that the reasonable reader/viewer of normal intelligence would not have construed the presidential address in the manner contended for by the DA,” said the judgment. 

When Ramaphosa said “we” in his speech, a reasonable reader would have heard “we” to mean “we” as a country and as a people, said the court. The DA’s summary of the speech also “overstates what the president claims has been achieved by the sixth administration”. 

If the speech was looked at as a whole, its “objective effect” was to “apprise the nation on the readiness of the country to hold national and provincial elections and the importance of having a government”, said the judgment. 

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