The MK Party has demanded that the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) immediately freeze the capturing of election results in disputed voting districts and wards in eThekwini, alleging systemic failures, discrepancies in results and irregularities in the counting and verification process.
In a formal objection submitted to the commission on Friday, the party accused the IEC of presiding over serious failures at its eThekwini results operations centre (ROC), claiming that a system breakdown during the live results-capturing and data transmission process had disrupted data streams and altered visible audit trails.
The objection, signed by MK Party acting secretary-general Lindiwe Makubu and addressed to IEC commissioner Titi Pitso, raises concerns about what the party describes as severe arithmetic and physical mismatches between results captured on the commission’s electronic leaderboards and certified physical results slips.
The party alleges that figures entered electronically at the ROC deviate systematically from the figures recorded on Form NP041 results slips, which it says were completed and counter-signed by its party agents at individual voting stations.
It wants the commission to place an immediate technical lock on all disputed system entries and results processing in affected voting districts and wards in the eThekwini metro until an open audit has been conducted.
The objection comes as the IEC continues with the verification and capturing of results after the November 4 local government elections, with the accuracy and credibility of the results process under scrutiny.
IEC spokesperson Kate Bopela said the matter was in the hands of the commissioners.
“What we do as an organisation is that commissioners directly respond to political parties,” she said.
The MK Party further alleges that failures occurred during the physical verification, reconciliation and sorting of ballots between November 2 and 4.
It also takes issue with public statements by the IEC accusing the party of failing to deploy agents at various voting stations, arguing that these allegations were used to mask localised system failures and breaks in the chain of custody.
The party says the alleged failures have undermined its constitutional right to effective oversight of the electoral process.
In its demands, the MK Party wants the IEC to provide a transparent forensic technical explanation of the network glitch experienced at the eThekwini ROC, including a verification log of all data packets allegedly altered during the downtime.
It is also demanding access for an independent forensic systems analyst, appointed by contesting parties, to examine the commission’s data processing backend, source code operations and physical ballot reconciliations.
The party has further called on the commission to publicly withdraw what it describes as defamatory remarks accusing it of failing to deploy election agents, arguing that the statements prejudiced its public standing while the electoral dispute remained active.
Its most consequential demand is that the IEC postpone the final announcement and gazetting of municipal election results until all the alleged discrepancies, quarantine requests and verification disputes raised in its objection have been resolved.
The objection was lodged in terms of section 65 of the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act.
The MK Party also submitted an application for condonation should its objection be processed concurrently with or after the statutory 5pm deadline on Friday.
It argues that the alleged anomalies are ongoing and could not have been fully quantified before the deadline because the verification process at the ROC was still under way.
The party warned that refusing to consider its objection before the official declaration would cause what it described as irreparable constitutional injury to the electorate.
However, the four-page objection does not identify the specific voting districts or wards affected, quantify the alleged discrepancies or attach the results slips and technical evidence needed to independently establish the claims.
The allegations have not been independently verified.
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