Johannesburg - Black First Land First (BLF) has slammed organisations which took it to court for alleged "racism" prior to the 2019 elections, but the party remained upbeat as vote counting ramped up on Thursday afternoon.
Lindsay Maasdorp, BLF's national spokesperson, conceded that it was a difficult campaign season for the four-year-old organisation following the numerous court challenges it faced on allegations that the party was promoting racism.
On Monday, just two days before before the country headed to the polls, the Equality Court ruled that BLF's slogan - "Land or Death" - amounted to hate speech after Lucy Strydom, who was represented by the SA Human Rights Commission, referred the matter to court last year.
This followed attempts by the Freedom Front + to have the radical organisation barred from contesting the elections on the same allegations of racism.
“It’s been a real big challenge; you saw, the world saw (and) black people saw that AfriForum, the DA (and) the SA Human Rights Commission have taken our time, have stopped us from being able to campaign in the way that we (wanted)," Maasdorp told Independent Media.
“But the reality is (that) we have been doing this for four years, explaining to the black majority that they need a black voice to represent our interests on the land question, on the state bank, on the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank," he added.
#SAElections2019 @BLF_SouthAfrica Spokesperson Lindsay Maasdorp speaks about the challenges of being in-and-out of court during their election campaign. @TheStar_news @ReporterStar @IOL pic.twitter.com/URQ1zcSevs
— Khaya Sibulele Koko (@khayakoko88) May 9, 2019
However, just before midday, the BLF had put in a relatively poor showing on the Electoral Commission's leaderboard with only 0.07% - lagging far behind other newcomers such as Patricia De Lille's GOOD (0.69%), as well as the church-dominated African Transformation Movement (0.45%).
But Maasdorp said the party was still waiting for results from Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Gauteng.
“These are our strongholds; these are the places where we are contesting the elections provincially, and we know that our votes will come from them.
“So, as the BLF, we are very excited, optimistic and we can’t wait to address the land question in Parliament and ensure that the black people’s votes are represented in Parliament," the spokesperson contended.