By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has missed the deadline to file their answering affidavit in their application to the Electoral Court to have the national and provincial election results set aside.
The MK party lodged its urgent application seeking to set aside the general election outcome and to direct President Cyril Ramaphosa to proclaim a new election date within 90 days.
The party cited serious election irregularities” in their court papers filed this month.
In terms of the directives issued by the Electoral Court, they were meant to file their reply by Thursday 27 June 2024.
Instead of filing the expected the answering affidavit, as directed by the Electoral Court, the MK Party has asked for new directives from the court — including “on how technical reports must be received”.
Fullview undestands that in the absence of any explanation, the applicant’s non-compliance with the prescribed time period for lodging application cannot be condoned.
The party has alleged in papers filed to the electoral court that had there not been electoral fraud, it would “in all likelihood” have won outright majority in the poll.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) meanwhile said the MK Party’s latest attempt to overturn the election results is an abuse of the court processes.
The IEC has filed an affidavit in the Electoral Court opposing the MK Party’s application to have the 2024 general election results set aside.
It’s labeled the application a carbon copy of an earlier one dismissed by the Constitutional Court this month
Lack of evidence, misrepresentation of data and a disregard for correct procedure.
That is how the Electoral Commission described the MK Party’s application.
In an affidavit deposed to by the IEC’s chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo, he said the MK Party had not produced a shred of evidence to support its voter rigging claims.
He said the cyber expert report presented by the party was not authored and therefore could not be trusted to have come from a trusted source.
In its founding papers, the MK Party said its cyber experts had counted at least 9.3 million votes that were taken away from the organisation.
However, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said that the MK Party did not identify who these experts were and why they were qualified to do that analysis.
DA have filed affidavits opposing the MK Party’s application to have the 2024 general elections set aside.
The party said the discrepancy identified by the MK Party between registered voters and votes cast failed to take into account the fact that there were three ballots in the recent elections.
Mamabolo further accused the party led by former President Jacob Zuma of trying to inflame the passions of the public.
Additionally, Mamabolo addressed the two-hour system failure of the IEC’s leaderboard on 31 May, saying the technical glitch did not compromise the election results.
“Data capturing continued unaffected and no data was lost during this period. The functional system continued to operate unaffected.
“The results system also remained functional and uncompromised. There was only an interruption in the transmission of data to the leaderboard as a result of the flagging error in the reporting system.”
Mamabolo also denied MK Party’s claim that the IEC “rushed” to declare the election results despite objections from various political parties.