The Patriotic Alliance (PA) have opened a case of election fraud with the police against people they believe are African National Congress (ANC) officials regarding the recent by-election in ward five in the Koukamma municipality in the Eastern Cape.
PA regional election manager, Christo Thana, alleges that the ANC members forcefully took IDs from residents in ward six and went onto the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) website to change their addresses to ward five so they could vote.
Thana alleges that when the residents refused, they were informed that if they didn’t vote, they would not get jobs.
The African National Congress won the by-election with 46.24% of the vote against the Patriotic Alliance’s 37.39%.
Voter turnout was 52.96%.
Thana says the IEC must investigate the online address registration process.
“This online registration process of the IEC is not sound or full proof and they should really put some intervention into it. Because this really leaves an open gate for corruption and a loophole for the same actions in future elections,” says Thana.
ANC responds
The ANC in the province rejects the PA claim of election fraud.
The party’s Eastern Cape Spokesperson, Gift Ngqondi, says the ANC won the election legitimately.
“The Eastern Cape ANC rejects with the contempt it deserves the accusations that we stole votes in ward five by-election at Koukamma. We want to reiterate that our campaign was clean and that we have got strong support in Koukamma and we have done our work. We have campaigned door to door and have convinced voters to vote for the ANC. So, all those accusations are just baseless.”
IEC reacts
The Provincial Electoral Officer, Khayakazi Magudumana, says they have received an objection from the Patriotic Alliance in Koukamma regarding the by-election.
She says the IEC is looking into the matter.
“During the process of objections to the voters roll, none of the political parties submitted any objection at the time. But nevertheless, in the spirit of fairness in the processes that we administered, we will look into the matter and be able to determine if there is anything that is amiss with the voters that are in the voters roll, that was in use during the by-elections that were held in the by election last week,” says Magudumana.
