ANC to appeal trademark ruling in ‘defense of its legacy’

The African National Congress (ANC) says it won’t roll over and play dead in its trademark battle with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party).

The governing party says it will be appealing yesterday’s Durban High Court judgement, which dismissed its case with costs against former president Jacob Zuma’s new political outfit in defense of its legacy.

“The ANC reiterates that it is committed to respecting of the country for a free and fair election in line with the electoral code,” the party’s Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula, told reporters in response to the damning ruling.

He says Zuma’s party has misrepresented itself by using, what he claims is ANC’s well-known logo on its well-known name “uMkhonto WeSizwe”.

Mbalula says the ANC’s fight is not against MK Party’s presence on the ballot paper, but it’s about defending the intellectual property of Africa’s oldest liberation movement.

 

He says his party is not worried by Zuma’s decision to leave the ANC form his own party.

“There have been many others before the former president, who did the same, yet the ruling party had no issue with,” he says.

Independent political analyst, Goodenough Mashego, says it is disappointing that the ANC has never registered its intellectual property or its legacy despite it having had lawyers, which include the late former president Nelson Mandela and Mathews Phosa, in its leadership structures.

Mashego believes that South Africans made a mistake by entrusting the ANC with power.

He says has been ready to welcome a new governing party as far back as 1994, when the ANC came into power. The political analyst believes that 30 years into democracy, South Africa remains ready for a new dispensation – as the country has already witnessed and experienced the party’s failure in various sectors – even if it means a coalition is formed.

Yesterday’s court loss was a second direct legal loss for the governing party since it first crossed swords with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, which was formed last December.

MK Party has hailed the court’s decision, saying it will now fully focus on winning a two-thirds majority in the May 29 general elections. Written by Odirile Rabolao