By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Electoral Court has issued out directives in the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party’s application to set aside the 2024 National and Provincial Elections.
The party applied to the electoral court to declare that the elections were not free and fair, to set aside their results, and to direct President Cyril Ramaphosa to proclaim a new election date within 90 days.
In directions from the court on Friday, the electoral court has given respondents until Tuesday to file responding affidavits.
It also directed the MKP to file its replying affidavit by June 27.
The MK Party won 14.5 percent of the vote, which translates into 58 seats in the National Assembly, but claims that the declared result and Ramaphosa’s re-election was tantamount to a coup.
Its approach to the electoral court comes after the Constitutional Court dismissed its application for direct access to challenge the result. The court said the application was meritless, noting that the party had failed to adduce any evidence to make out a prima facie case that the election was not free and fair.
In the application, the party’s national organiser Nathi Nhleko said had the elections been free and fair, the MKP would “in all likelihood” have won, “with the consequence it would have earned the right and obligation to form a national government”.
Nhleko referred to the evidence of “experts”, which he said showed voting irregularities that were “glaring and inexplicable on any other basis other than that there was a huge attempt to subvert the democratic will of the citizens of this country”.
The experts were not named in his affidavit, but he said the IEC could not explain the discrepancies in numbers produced in the expert tables attached to his affidavit.
“It is clear these discrepancies are evidence of deliberate vote-rigging in that an IEC official was deliberately involved in changing the accurate votes captured at the voting district and replacing those results with false numbers,” said Nhleko.
Nkheko said he was bringing the application in the interest of the party, but also in that of the public.
“The relief that the applicant seeks is far-reaching but necessary, “he wrote.
“The legitimacy of any government in a democratic system underpinned by the Constitution depends on the legitimacy of the elections. Undermine the lawfulness of the elections you undermine the constitution itself and violate the basic tenets of democracy.”
The Electoral Act says that an election may not be set aside “because of a mistake in the conduct of that election or a failure to comply with this Act” unless that mistake or failure “materially affected the result of the election”.