MK party and IEC hold talks over vote rigging claims

MK party supporters outside the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, 10 May 2024. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/ The Citizen After a period of tension over the 2024 election results, Jacob Zuma’s MK party and the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) are attempting to resolve their differences, despite analysts believing the former president’s party has no case anyway. The MK party challenged the 2024 results in the Electoral Court, asking for it to declare them null and void.

It alleged the results were compromised due to vote rigging, which the IEC denied. It laterwithdrew the case without giving reasons, but then decided to continue the matter in the Constitutional Court (ConCourt). While the party continued with its legal challenge, it decided to keep communicating with the IEC.

It still wants the ConCourt to set aside the 2024 results. This week, senior officials from the MK party held a meeting with the IEC’s senior officials, but the talks seemed to have deadlocked on the question of the court challenge, which the party wants to proceed with. The MK party performed well in the 2024 polls to become the third largest party in the country after the DA and the ANC.

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It received 15% of the national votes, replacing the EFF in third spot. It contested the polls almost a year after its launch in December 2023 under the ticket of radical economic transformation. In a statement after this week’s meeting, MK party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said it would forge ahead with the legal challenge despite the ongoing dialogue with the IEC.

“Our Constitutional Court application is not a political manoeuvre but a necessary step to safeguard the will of the people. We cannot abandon this process whenserious allegations about the credibility of the elections remain unresolved,” said Ndhlela. Some question the party’s insistence on proceeding with the matter when it was clear it had no case after itfailed to produce evidenceof vote rigging.

Observers said the party was intent on winning the sympathy vote, particularly fromthose who believe that Zuma was being victimised. “Privately, my opinion is that MK is exploiting the cautious diplomatic (even differential) approach by the IEC to lend an air of legitimacy to the narrative that there is a case to answer with the rigging claim,” an analyst said.

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