Former South Africa President Jacob Zuma and now Umkhonto WE Sizwe Party (MK) leader wants election officials to delay the announcement of results scheduled for Sunday June 2.
Zuma while addressing the press on Saturday June 1 at the national Results Operation Centre (ROC) in Gallagher Estate, Midrands said making the announcement on Sunday would amount to “provocation”.
“Nobody must force us to say these are the results when the results are incorrect. If they say so, I think the institution must satisfy us that they did look into the issues,” Jacob Zuma said.
“We are going to need the time. Nobody must declare tomorrow, no. If that happens, people will be provoking us because we know what we are talking about.”
Jacob Zuma Wants IEC not To Rush
The MK party leader said the commission should give political parties, which he thinks are a majority, a chance to present their cases, information, further asking IEC not to rush them.
“We are not guessing, we know. And why should they rush to count? I am hoping whoever is responsible is hearing what we are saying. Don’t start trouble when there is no trouble,” he added.
“Some say machines crashed. No machine crashed. Wrong things were being done on the machines. We are going to present that.”
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According to Zuma, the complaints that had been brought to the IEC were “very, very serious” and wanted transparency.
“You are supposed to be working for us. This is not for us to trouble us as South Africans because we know we needed a two-thirds majority. “Don’t try to interfere,” Zuma said.
MK Party Calls for a Re-Run
The MK party also threatened to take legal action against the IEC demanding that allegations of vote-rigging be addressed first.
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The party, through spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela had earlier called for a recount and a commission of inquiry into the elections where they allege that the electoral body’s IT system had been tampered with when it had technical glitches on Saturday June 1.
“There is an IT entity which was appointed in Cape Town, that interfered during that two-hour period. We can confirm it,” Ndhlela said.
“We briefed our president, commander-in-chief Zuma about the IEC discrepancies and concluded that we are seeking a recount.”
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Joining Zuma is the National Freedom Party leader Ivan Barnes who also said the IEC must address objections of political parties raised before announcing the results. He says the party wants a credible government to lead SA.
In response to the allegations, the electoral body said it had received a total of 579 objections from voters and political parties. It said it would address all the complaints and it was ready to declare the official election results Sunday as scheduled.
The MK party has attained over 2.3 million votes in the May 29 elections, securing just under 14.59% of the votes in the elections.
It was the third biggest party in the country, behind the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) which attained 6.4 and 3.49 million respectively. The ANC and the DA attained 40.21% and 21.76% respectively.
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