The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has moved swiftly to clarify the issues of ‘unaccounted for votes’ following allegations of vote rigging by the uMkhonto weSizwe Party and other political parties.
On the weekend, the MKP indicated that it had evidence of more than 9 million votes unaccounted for in the declaration of the election results.
On Monday, South Africans on social media reacted with suspicion after the commission updated its dashboard with added regional votes, resulting in the ANC moving from 6 million votes to 12 million votes and other parties’ votes being adjusted without any explanation.
However, it turned out to be the inclusion of the third regional ballot after the IEC regional and national numbers.
In a statement issued on Monday night following confusion and a public outcry, the IEC said this adjustment was to reflect the total number of votes from the two National Assembly ballots and final seat allocation.
“The Electoral Commission notes the conversation and some confusion with the update of the elections results dashboard last week to reflect the total number of votes from the two National Assembly ballots and final seat allocation (out of 400 seats) for the 2024 National and Provincial Elections.
“The Electoral Act prescribes that for the calculation of compensatory seats both national compensatory (N) ballots and regional (R) ballots are taken into account hence the demotion of N and R on the results dashboard,” the IEC said.
The IEC said this was done to ensure that the seat allocation of compensatory seats took into account the regional strength of all political parties, in order to meet the proportional representation as demanded by the Constitution.
Speaking on Newzroom Afrika, elections expert, Dr Sithembele Mbete echoed the commission but added that this should have been done much earlier to avoid unnecessary confusion.
“I think that it is unfortunate that we did not get a statement from the IEC sooner than we got it yesterday. I think that they should have explained before even making the changes. They should have explained that there were changes that were going to be made and why they were being made,” she said.
Mbete added that this was the first time that the IEC was receiving so much scrutiny over its processes.
“I think for the IEC, this is the first time that their processes are facing this amount of scrutiny from the general public. Some of us have been scrutinising the IEC processes for nearly 15 years now. In the past the outcomes of the elections have been taken for granted because we were in an environment where one party was very dominant,” she said.
Meanwhile, the MKP has turned to the Electoral Court seeking an order to declare the results invalid due to purported irregularities.
The party believes the 2024 General Elections were not free and fair, and the results are therefore invalid. It also wants an order from the court directing the president to call for new elections to be held.
On Sunday, leader of the MKP, Jacob Zuma, indicated during a media briefing in Sandton, that the party had instructed its legal teams to take the necessary steps, inside and outside South Africa, to ensure that justice was served.
“I want to tell you what our legal person was telling me. The judges here who make judgments not based on facts are likely to tell you that this is all wrong. We are going to the international court so that this country does not have South African judges doing so.
“Judges who get angry and sentence you because they hate you. We are going to the judges who look at things and look at issues. We are going there to the judges that look at things and issues... For the record, the MK Party is of the strong view that the 2024 elections were rigged and that the results announced by the IEC are not a true reflection of the will of the people,” he said.
The Star