The MK party has pinned its dispute over the May 2024 national election results on a two-hour technical glitch that hit the leader board of the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC), saying its votes could have been compromised.
The party filed fresh arguments at the Electoral Court last week after it withdrew its case on the election outcome last year.
Its lawyers — Thabani Masuku, Menzi Simelane and Ntokozo Mjiyako — argue the elections were not free and fair. They say the commission could have been compromised when the IEC experienced problems at their national results operations centre leader board on May 31 2024.
There was “interference” in the commission’s system, the lawyers argue, basing their arguments on a report written by Vusi Mhlongo, whom they refer to as an “expert” in the information technology system.
“[MK party] only has to demonstrate that the IEC’s decision to deliberately interfere with a live and functioning digital votes capturing and reporting system violated the non-negotiable requirements — and therefore acted unlawful in that the election of 2024 was neither free nor fair,” the party says in its court papers.
They say the commission has to produce evidence its systems were not interfered with during the glitch.
“The onus lies entirely on the IEC to prove that the digital votes capturing and reporting system is reliable and can be trusted by the voters to accurately report on the votes.”
They also criticise IEC chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo’s evidence, calling him a “nonexpert” on information system issues.
“In this case, where the IEC has specifically been called upon to provide the report on its digital votes capturing and reporting system, it has failed to do so. Rather, it has relied on Mr Mamabolo, who is not an expert on information systems.
“As is demonstrated by the [MKP’s] expert, Mr Mamabolo has failed to give credible technical answers to explain the efficacy of the digital votes capturing and reporting system that was relied on by the IEC to manage the elections,” they argue.
They say the failure is inexplicable and gives the “inescapable impression” that the failures of the digital votes capturing and reporting system were “exposed to more malignant factors than a simple inadvertence in the programming of the system”.
Mamabolo, in his court papers, argues Mhlongo is not an expert and “demonstrated bias” in his report submitted by MKP in court.
“Mr Mhlongo’s report is thus not admissible. Since the entire application is premised on the contents of Mr Mhlongo’s report, I am advised that the effect of its inadmissibility is that the application must be dismissed,” Mamabolo’s court papers read.
When MK withdrew its case from court last year, its leader, Jacob Zuma, claimed it had evidence “as huge as an elephant” to back its allegation that millions of votes were fraudulently handled and only withdrew to prepare the “evidence”.
Mamabolo challenges the shift in the party’s arguments before court.
“The MK has now launched a third application for the same relief,” he said adding that the party had abandoned the allegations that underpinned the application it purported to withdraw.
“It no longer relies on the analysis presented in its previous application to claim that over 9.3-million votes were not accounted for in the declared election results,” says Mamabolo.
“Its case is now premised on alleged ‘grave inconsistencies in reports generated by the IEC dashboard’. Clearly the MK was not collating evidence to support the case it sought to temporarily withdraw.”
He says the current application before court is also “unfounded”.
“In all three cases, the MK has levelled serious and scandalous allegations against the commission — of ‘vote rigging, fraud and serious voter irregularities’ — without admissible evidence. This form of litigation is vexatious and abusive.
“By litigating in this matter, the MK has required the commission to answer to three meritless cases to defend the integrity and results of the 2024 elections.”
The case will be heard in June.
The party amassed 2,283,865 national votes in its first contest yet in 2024, a feat regarded as more than credible by political analysts. It is the third-largest party in the National Assembly after the ANC and the DA.
It became the official opposition in parliament after the second-placed DA joined the government of national unity.
Since 1994 no new SA party contesting national elections for the first time attained more than 2-million votes.
The national votes combined with the regional votes tallied to 4,584,864 for the MK party.
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