IEC seeks to permanently sanction Zuma party

The IEC wants the Electoral Court to order that Jacob Zuma's MKP cannot launch a new election rigging case without convincing the court it has the evidence to back it up. News24 reports that the party previously announced it was withdrawing its first legal challenge to the validity of the 29 May elections, where it alleged more than 9.3m votes were unaccounted for, after the IEC filed a scathing rebuke of its complete lack of ‘credible and admissible evidence’ for that claim. However, party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela insisted it had uncovered new evidence that proved the election had been rigged, but said this alleged evidence would only be disclosed when ‘we take the matter back to court again’. MKP attorney Barnabas Xulu stated the party only sought to ‘temporarily withdraw the application whilst collating the available evidence’. In these circumstances, the IEC's attorney, Moeti Kanyane, argued, it was fully within its rights to seek an order that the MKP‘may not reinstitute an application in this court on the same or substantially similar issues and relief without the leave of this court on good cause shown’. Should the MKP seek this permission, the IEC said, it should be ordered to do so ‘on affidavit explaining the circumstances of the withdrawal’.

In response to the IEC's previous request that the MKP undertake not to launch a similar election rigging case, Xulu made it clear it would defy that demand. ‘Our client cannot waive its constitutional rights to approach the court where it is justified to seek appropriate relief. As your client (the IEC) is a constitutional institution that is tasked with promoting, protecting, and giving effect to constitutional rights, it is rather shocking that it would insist on a condition such as this one,’ he said. New24 notes that Kanyane has roundly rejected Xulu's accusation the IEC is trying to prevent the party from accessing the courts: ‘It (the IEC) has sought to prevent your client (MKP) from persisting in abusive and vexatious litigation. It has not asked your client to waive its rights, but has sought to ensure that your client's case is finally determined on the papers, alternatively that it is withdrawn on terms that are fair and that protect against further abuse of process.’

The IEC's chief electoral officer, Sy Mamabolo, contended the MKP ‘has misrepresented the actual election data and results and that its central allegation that millions of votes are unaccounted for is ‘patently false’. ‘The application is founded on a litany of wholly unsupported assertion of 'evidence' of election fraud, vote rigging and manipulation of electoral processes and figures that are misrepresented as the commission's data,’ Mamabolo stated. News24 notes that the rebuke appears not to have dissuaded Zuma from continuing to claim the elections were stolen. During his recent graft trial appearance in the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg), Zuma told crowds of his supporters ‘we had an election, and we led in terms of winning’. The judges hearing the MKP’s now abandoned election rigging case have indicated they will decide the matter on the papers filed by the various parties and have invited all of them to specifically ‘address the issue of the withdrawal applied for by the (MKP)’. ‘The issue of any costs award should also be addressed,’ the Electoral Court's registrar stated.