Simon Nare
Former President Jacob Zuma’s MK party has temporarily withdrawn its case against the IEC at the Electoral Court – where it sought to challenge the 29 May national and provincial election results – due to technicalities and not because the case is weak, said the party in a statement.
The party on Wednesday notified the court it is temporarily putting its bid to have the election results declared null and void, on ice.
The party has cited National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza and President Cyril Ramaphosa among the respondents.
In papers supporting the withdrawal, the party’s lawyers, JG & Xulu Incorporated, pointed out that the move should not be interpreted as though it has no case but rather that it needed more time to put together its case and collate evidence at its disposal.
The lawyers said as soon as the party filed papers, the IEC with the support of the DA which filed papers to back the commission, made it clear it wanted the matter dismissed on technicalities.
“The MK Party has evidence of election irregularities. We have, however, advised our client that there are procedural and technical issues that need to be complied with to present such evidence before the application can be adjudicated upon by the court,” the lawyers said.
The party had asked for the court to give it further directives on a number of issues but those have not been forthcoming from the court, the lawyers said.
“In other words, in the absence of any directives regulating the further conduct of the matter which we accept is entirely at the discretion of the court, the MK Party has decided that the matter should be withdrawn.
“The withdrawal is in no way an admission that our client does not have a compelling case for the order it seeks. The contrary is true. The experts that are being engaged by our client continue to uncover further evidence of election irregularities that is so serious it would be reckless to risk the application being dismissed on the basis of IEC’s technical objections”.
According to the lawyers, these experts needed time to prepare comprehensive reports involving a thorough assessment of the IEC results. They further pointed out that the commission in its answering affidavits has failed to provide explanation around the results leaderboard malfunctioning for almost two hours as results were trickling in.
Further the lawyers argued that the commission failed to provide an explanation of what were the risk benefit analysis carried out to authorize the update.
“The IEC’s failure to provide information in its answering affidavit that will answer the above question is one of the factors that has necessitated our client’s decision to temporarily withdraw the application whilst collating the available evidence,” argued the lawyers.
INSIDE POLITICS
