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Cape Town – The DA's call for "emergency elections" undermines the Constitution and is a refusal to accept defeat at the polls, the ANC said on Monday.
"This uncontrollable desire for power by all means necessary is a desperate attempt to bring back apartheid," spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said.
The Constitution provides for national and provincial elections every five years.
The DA's call was therefore nothing else but a "smash and grab", which must be rejected and condemned, he said.
On Sunday, the DA started a petition calling for early "emergency elections". It said the ANC had lost the confidence of the majority of South Africans.
Parliament needed "a new beginning through the ballot box", DA national spokesperson Phumzile van Damme said.
Fresh start needed
"It may be too late to wait until 2019 to save our country. We have to act now. South Africa does not have to withstand the devastating effects of Jacob Zuma’s presidency for another two years."
The call followed the failed motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma on August 8. It was the first done via secret ballot. At least 30 ANC MPs voted in favour of the motion.
While Zuma survived the eighth motion against him in his eight-year stint as president, his critics said his control over crucial institutions had made his removal unlikely.
On August 10, DA leader Mmusi Maimane tabled a motion to have Parliament dissolved and early elections held. He urged citizens to imagine a post-ANC South Africa, saying a fresh start was needed.
"What is clear is that we need a new beginning," he told members of the Cape Town Press Club.
"The Constitution allows us to make a fresh start."
The motion is unlikely to pass, as both the majority ANC and many of the DA's opposition partners rejected the call to dissolve Parliament. The EFF said it was disingenuous.
