MK party wants eThekwini votes quarantined over KZN IEC ‘system failures’

The MK party has demanded that the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) quarantine a portion of the votes cast in its stronghold, KwaZulu-Natal, alleging discrepancies.

The party sent a formal objection to the IEC on Friday, alleging a “critical system failure occurred during the live results capturing and data transmission phase at the IEC eThekwini Results Operations Centre (ROC)” which led to disrupted data streams and “altered the visible audit trails”.

It said this failure undermines the credibility of the results counting process.

The votes in dispute appear to have been cast in eThekwini, where the party currently leads the polls but does not have an outright majority.

The numbers don’t match

It said that while results capturing remained active, “severe arithmetic and physical mismatches” have since been identified.

“Monitored numbers captured electronically on the ROC leaderboards deviate systematically from the certified physical copies of the results slips (Form NP041) filled out and counter-signed by party agents at individual voting stations,” it alleged.

It also claimed that systemic failures occurred during the in-person verification, reconciliation, and sorting of ballots during voting this week.

Quarantine the votes

The party called for the IEC to quarantine the votes in dispute and delay results announcements until the matter is resolved.

“The IEC must place an immediate technical lock and quarantine status on all system entries, and results processing for the specific affected Voting Districts (VDs) and wards within the eThekwini Metro. Capturing for these segments must be frozen until an open audit is conducted.”

It also called for a transparent, forensic technical explanation from the IEC explaining the glitch and how data was affected.

“The IEC must allow an independent Forensic Systems Analyst, appointed by the contesting parties, to audit the data processing backend, source code operations, and physical ballot reconciliations,” it added.

Fight over MK party agents

The party also took exception to the IEC’s claims that the MK party failed to provide party agents across several stations, saying it was masking “localised system lapses and chain-of-custody breaks, directly obstructing our constitutional right to robust oversight”

“The Commission must publicly withdraw its defamatory remarks accusing the MK party of failing to deploy station agents, which prejudiced the party’s public standing during an active electoral dispute.”

Protests

The objection comes amid the suspicions of the IEC by the MK party and its members following system errors in the 2024 general elections, which they said may have affected their total share of the votes.

MK party deputy president Duduzane Zuma this week said the party was still not satisfied with how the matter was handled and called for more transparency on the issue.

It also fed into a protest outside the eThekwini IEC election results centre on Friday, with MK party supporters warning against possible foul play.

The party’s officials called for calm and assured protesters that they were observing the results.