ANC wins South African elections as 35 opposition parties dispute

South African ruling Africa National Congress (ANC) has been re-elected with an absolute majority in parliament, results showed as monitored by Zambian Eye.

But 35 smaller opposition political parties have passed a vote of no confidence in the entire election process and declared the polls unfair. The 35 are among the total 48 who contested the May 8 Polls.

According to the latest results update on Saturday May 11th, captured at 04:00am, ANC has won but with diminished support. This is attributed to the complicated economic revival and anti-corruption efforts.

The results, published by the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), are the party’s worst national showing since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first multi-racial polls after apartheid ended in 1994.

The ANC held a comfortable lead with 57℅ after 99% of voting districts were officially tallied following Wednesday’s vote. That means they will be mathematically assured more than 50% of votes cast in the final official tally, due to be announced on Saturday.

Seats in parliament are allocated based on vote share and the party with the most representatives selects the president, who will be sworn in on May 25.

Results released by the IEC showed the ANC’s closest rival, the main opposition DA, trailing with just slightly above 20% of the vote.

The Economic Freedom Fighters, founded six years ago by former ANC youth leader Julius Malema, was in third place with 10.63% – up four percentage points from 2014.

Meanwhile, a letter has been sent to the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) by a group of smaller parties who has alleged the elections were neither free nor credible.

The lawyer representing smaller parties wrote a letter to IEC on Friday, which seeks to emphasise official objections lodged by the same parties with the Commission.

The letter also gives the IEC a deadline of 11:00 on Saturday to appoint an independent audit firm to review the results.

If the IEC refuses to do so, the letter sets out that the attorneys would approach the Electoral Court to seek an order compelling the IEC to appoint an auditor and furthermore interdict the IEC from declaring the outcome of the election.

The letter sets out the reasons why the parties do not believe the 2019 election was free and fair as a result of “various irregularities” including:

“a) Instances of persons who voted multiple times;
b) Voting stations opened late, and one not at all;
c) Voting stations running out of ballot papers, with voters being asked to come back later;
d) Many indelible ink pens not working and being rubbed off easily;
e) Scanners at voting districts not working”, the letter read in part.

The parties charge that these issues would make it impossible for the IEC to determine whether a voter had already voted, whether the voters were actually registered and which province the person was registered in.

The parties also complained of some voters being handed “different configurations” of ballot papers and that unmarked ballot papers were accepted by presiding officers.

The number of spoiled votes, which was 215 948 at around 5pm on Friday, was also of concern to the parties.