DA takes steps to bar BLF from elections after another race row

The DA has launched a petition to prevent the Black First Land First (BLF) from contesting the 2019 general elections.

This comes in the wake of reported utterances by the BLF that it viewed the death of four white children in a walkway collapse at the Hoërskool Driehoek in Vanderbijlpark on Friday as punishment from “ancestors” and “God”.

DA youth leader Luyolo Mphithi said on Sunday the BLF had shown itself it to be a “cabal of unrepentant racists” whose mission was to divide South Africans along racial lines and to undermine the constitutional value which stated that “SA belongs to all who live in it”.

“The IEC also has an important role to play in this regard; it cannot in good conscience accept that a party‚ which marvels at the death of three young pupils at Hoërskool Driehoek‚ is placed on the ballot paper and given the opportunity to contest in order to peddle hate along racial lines in parliament or the country’s nine provincial legislatures.

“Further to this‚ we have reported the BLF to the SA Human Rights Commission [SAHRC]‚” Mphithi said.

“We will request that this matter be expedited so we can use the SAHRC report as the basis of our case to the IEC to have the BLF barred from running in this election campaign.”

DA Gauteng youth chair Pogiso Mthimunye said on Sunday that they would lay the complaints at the SAHRC on Monday.

“This is a tragedy that affected the country terribly and for people to take it in this line‚ is completely out of order,” Mthimunye said.

BLF spokesperson Lindsay Maasdorp backed a comment made by Facebook user Siyanda Dizzy Gumede on the SABC’s post that at least three children died at the school.

Gumede wrote: “Don’t have heart to feel pain for white kids. Minus three future problems.”

The post was deleted after it met with outrage from several Facebook users.

Maasdorp took to Twitter and said: “Syanda Gumede is correct! God is responding‚ why should we frown on the ancestors’ petitions to punish the land thieves, including their offspring.”

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation also condemned Maasdorp’s remarks.

The foundation’s executive director Neeshan Balton said the comments were despicable.

This was not the first time Maasdorp has come under criticism for his comments made on social media.

In 2016, Maasdorp posted on social media that “I have aspirations to kill white people‚ and this must be achieved!”