While the DA had disagreements in the past with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), the court case by the MK Party to set aside the recent election was “of an entirely different nature”, says the DA’s Helen Zille in court papers.
The MK Party made “sweeping allegations” of vote-rigging but “provide not one Iota of evidence to substantiate their sweeping accusations”, she said.
The chair of the DA’s federal council was responding on Tuesday to an application by the MK Party to the Electoral Court to set aside the election, which the MK Party claims was not free and fair as it was tainted by “deliberate vote-rigging”.
The party has asked the court to set aside the results and to order the president to proclaim a new election date.
On Tuesday, the IEC filed its own answering papers to the MK Party's application.
The DA also entered the fray.
In her affidavit, Zille said the MK Party relied “on 'information’ which they claim has been drawn from the [IEC’s] public records and analysed by 'experts'”.
The MK Party did not identify these alleged 'experts', [l]et alone explain on what basis they are qualified to proffer opinions about these matters. MK [Party] does not even attach reports from these alleged 'experts'
— Helen Zille, DA federal council chair
The MK Party’s evidence — contained in its affidavit by national organiser Nathi Nhleko — came from alleged “experts”, said Zille. But the party did “not identify these alleged ‘experts’, [l]et alone explain on what basis they are qualified to proffer opinions about these matters. MK [Party] does not even attach reports from these alleged ‘experts’,” she said.
Instead, the party attached tables to its affidavit with an analysis of what it said were numbers from the IEC’s own published records. “But there is no explanation — whether in the affidavit or the annexures — explaining the alleged methodology adopted by these experts,” said Zille. The numbers also did not accord with the commission’s publicly available records.
There was no explanation for how the MK Party reached its conclusion that more than 9-million votes were missing and which ballots were alleged to be missing, she said. “Such a serious claim — which if true would strike at the heart of the freeness and fairness of the elections — cannot be made without proper foundation.”
The application was supposed to be sent to all the parties that contested the elections, but Zille said it had not been properly served on any party, including the DA.
Some of the political parties were served via the secretary of parliament at the address xgeorge@parliament.dov.za. “But service on the secretary of parliament cannot be construed as proper service on the political parties. In any event, parliament’s e-mail service does not end in ‘.dov.za’, but rather ‘.gov.za’,” said Zille.
The same e-mail address was used to send the court papers to the speaker of parliament. “It is not clear whether service has been effected on the secretary of parliament.”
TimesLIVE Premium also previously reported the e-mail address used for the president in the MK Party’s notice of motion also appeared to be incorrect — it was sent to an address that ended “go.za” and another that ended in “dov.za” — and the attorney who was cited for some of the other political parties, Fawzia Khan and Associates, said she had not been instructed by these parties to represent them in this litigation.
Zille also said the MK Party’s claim of urgency was “self-created”. The rules of the Electoral Court say a court case challenging the IEC’s decisions must be made within three days. The decisions the party is challenging were taken on June 2, said Zille,yet “this application was only instituted after June 12.
“MK [Party] provides no explanation for why it did not approach the court sooner.”
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