Strategic withdrawal of Electoral Court Application

3 July 2024

We confirm that on 03 July 2024, we delivered a notice to the Electoral Court withdrawing our application. We initiated the application to challenge the conduct of the Independent Electoral Commission to declare the national and provincial election results was in haste and violated the will of the people.

We are still of the firm view that the election results are not credible, free nor were they fair. Our reasons, in part, which we will demonstrate in our pursuit to take the matter further, is the failure by the IEC to perform credible forensic audits of its election system.

After filing our application to set aside the election result, the IEC and its newly found ally, the Democratic Alliance, filed answering affidavits from which it is clear that the IEC wishes to have the matter dismissed as urgently as it declared the results based largely on technicalities.

The MK Party has now gained further evidence of election irregularities and vote rigging. We have however also been advised by our legal counsel that there are procedural and technical issues that will be further brought to the fore to present such evidence before the application can be adjudicated upon by way of a new application to set aside the election results and the declaration thereof by the IEC.

The withdrawal is in no way an indication that we do not have a compelling case for the orders we seek. As the MK Party we are resolute and will be filing papers as per the answering affidavit which brought about further evidence which strengthens our case against the IEC.

The experts that we have engaged continue to uncover further evidence of election irregularities that are so serious that it would be reckless to risk the application being dismissed on the basis of IEC’s technicalities. Given these circumstances and to further ensure that all the evidence in the possession of the MK Party is presented before the Court in a manner that enables a fair adjudication of the matter, we have been advised that the application should be withdrawn for now. In light of the above mentioned, MK Party will be filing a new court case with the necessary courts as a matter of urgency.

Issued by MKP, 3 July 2024