Opposition parties head to Electoral Court for alleged vote rigging in Mbizana, E Cape

The election process in the Winne Madikizela-Mandela Municipality in Mbizana, Eastern Cape, continues to hit stumbling blocks. First, there were pre-election protests and the locking of voting stations, and now doubts are being cast on the results in some wards.

Opposition parties in the municipality are objecting to final numbers in some of the wards, alleging that these were tampered with, after being sealed. Some even want to approach the Electoral court.

Opposition parties in the municipality have called for an investigation into alleged vote-rigging in some of the wards. They’re alleging that ballot papers were tampered with, after being sealed.

They’ve also called for the immediate suspension of IEC officials fingered in the alleged vote-rigging.

The counting process was delayed as political parties demanded answers from the Electoral Commission.

Convener of the Socialist Party of South Africa, Moyisi Srhamza, and DA’s Bubele Mangqalaza say some of the envelopes were tampered with.

Mangqalaza says, “Counting stopped at about 3 in the morning today because we identified several irregularities conducted by the IEC together with presiding officers.”

Srhamza explains that “The process of elections has been completely maneuvered and our position as the socialist party is – we strongly reject the results and we condemn the act that has been committed of maneuvering election process. Our proposal to IEC is that an investigation process should take place.”

The parties are alleging that IEC officials were involved.

Isaac Sambuka from the Academic Congress Union says “We have witnessed last night a very sad incident whereby a presiding officer told us that he was phoned by one of the people from IEC to change the results and she was coming from the voting station to the results centre. So we view this as a mandate  that the IEC is carrying from the ANC to disrupt the freedom, to disrupt the elections in South Africa.”

APC’s Sonwabile Ngoneni says “There were a lot of silly mistakes that were made by few PO –  that is presiding officers. But as the APC, we said no not all of them, we must not paint all of them with the same brush. Let us just bring aside all those faulty results and all those negative talkings and then continue with process today and have the results.”

The IEC in the province says it will respond to the allegations when it receives an official complaint or court papers regarding the matter.