It has been a busy week for Jacob Zuma’s MK party. Internal machinations aside, its continued onslaught on the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) is concerning.
This week the party’s third attempt at challenging the outcome of the 2024 national election was postponed indefinitely at MK’s behest.
This was before the party fired secretary-general Floyd Shivambu, relegating him to the position of an ordinary MP by using his visit to fugitive Shepherd Bushiri during an April trip to Malawi as an excuse.
Co-opting Shivambu was an effective way of neutralising the EFF, which was at the forefront of the fight against Zuma inside and outside the ANC for almost the duration of his presidency. The Zuma-Shivambu bromance was never going to last.
Zuma was also never going to run a smooth, successful and efficient organisation. On his watch, internal democracy in the ANC (which was almost 100 when he ascended to its helm), while already weak, was practically demolished and replaced by patronage networks that fuelled factional battles over proximity to state power.
His persistent attack on the IEC should be carefully watched given his track record of destroying crucial state institutions through underhanded tactics.
News24’s Karyn Maughan reported earlier this week that MK stalled the court challenge to fight for “access to evidence of alleged vote manipulation”.
The party has argued in three court applications that it actually won the election with a two-thirds majority and was cheated out of its rightful place as SA’s governing party.
The first application was dismissed by the Constitutional Court and it withdrew the second from the Electoral Court.
Maughan reported that in the latest case before the same court it asked for the postponement because it is set to appeal the Electoral Court’s dismissal of its application to force the IEC “to produce all the information relating to its use of the digital votes capturing and reporting system”.
It is clear that there is method behind the court applications being lodged by MK.
In court papers in each application it has thrown alleged faults with different aspects of the electoral process at the IEC, either hoping that something would stick or, more plausibly, seeking to draw out information about the inner workings of the IEC systems (which incidentally, are pretty transparent).
Could Zuma be looking for loopholes to exploit in future elections? It may sound conspiratorial, but it is entirely in character. For example, in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre in the platinum belt, Zuma, with the state security agency he controlled at the time, set up a bogus union on the platinum belt to spy on rival unions in the area.
This was confirmed after the frontman for the bogus union laid it all out in court papers once the money from Zuma and his minions had dried up.
This dodgy meddling in union battles along the platinum belt also appears in the Zondo state capture report.
In addition, Zuma used bogus intelligence reports containing fictitious allegations to weaken the National Treasury when he sought to capture it, and to recall former finance minister Pravin Gordhan from an investor roadshow in 2016.
He went on to use the same fake intelligence report to justify his axing of Gordhan with the ANC’s national officials days later.
Zuma’s minions in various captured institutions during his tumultuous presidency used the same strategy — falsified reports or allegations of wrongdoing — to get rid of their own opponents, from Tom Moyane at the SA Revenue Service to Brian Molefe at Eskom and Shaun Abrahams at the National Prosecuting Authority.
It is therefore entirely plausible that there is a sinister motive in Zuma’s bid to drag the IEC through ugly litigation, questioning its integrity but also drawing it out on process.
• Marrian is Business Day editor-at-large.
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