Small parties, who contested Wednesday general elections, are taking Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to the Electoral Court.
The parties are citing flawed electoral processes as the crux of their unhappiness.
They broke into song and protested at the Results Elections Centre in Pretoria, on Thursday evening, rejecting the elections preliminary results. They are demanding an election re-run.
The African Transformation Movement (ATM), Black First Land First (BLF), National Freedom Party (NFP), Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP), Women Forward (WF) and the Land Party (Land) are among the disgruntled group.
Allegations of double-voting due to an ineffective indelible ink and a shortage of voting materials are among the issues raised by the parties.
“We had a meeting earlier as the smaller parties that have contested elections and in that meeting a lot of irregularities were sighted and were actually highlighted as to what went wrong with these particular elections. One particular issue is on the day of the elections IEC was not in control. There were many irregularities; one of the key four irregularities is the issue of the ink, people having multiple votes, issuing out of voting slips, issues of scanners not working properly,” says African People’s Convention’s (APC) Adil Nchabeleng.
20 people have since been arrested for violating the Electoral Act in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
They allegedly tried voting more than once.
Despite this however, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has assured South Africans that the almost 60% votes counted so far are credible.
Three horse battle
The small parties have been battling it out for a slice of the electoral pie, as the country’s three major parties continue to dominate the political landscape.
The leader-board paints a worrying picture for them. The Congress of the People (Cope) and the United Democratic Movement (UDM) are among those bleeding votes.
“We are worried but of course it is still early days,” says Cope Secretary, Mzwandile Hleko.
The UDM, nonetheless, remains hopeful. The party’s national treasurer, Thandi Nontenja says, “We are not worried not all with the votes that have been counted.”
However, showing dwindling support on the national and provincial ballots, analysts believe the party should be concerned.
At the same time – while some are licking their wounds, others are savouring unexpected gains. The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) has doubled its showing.
Political analyst, Somadoda Fikeni, says people may have gone back to the FF Plus because of the contentious land issue and changes of street names and statues.
Also on an upward trajectory are two newcomers Patricia De Lille’s, Good Party and the ATM.
Both parties were formed just months before the election but are having a strong showing on the results board.
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