The Electoral Commission (IEC) has confirmed the dismissal of its employee who leaked the candidates’ lists of the African National Congress (ANC) and the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.
The commission instituted an investigation into the leak following the circulation of the lists on social media. It says its employee’s actions are illegal.
Earlier the Commission conceded that the leak of the candidates’ lists originated from its office.
The ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has since welcomed the investigation, saying the party has nothing to hide. The Chief Electoral Officer Sy Mamabolo addressed the media in Centurion, Pretoria, yesterday.
“The commission is able to provide a preliminary report as follows, the investigation has narrowed the source of the disclosure to a workstation that has been used to generate and store those reports. Later the said reports were deleted from the workstation. earlier today that workstation was secured and imaged in the presence of the officials whose credentials were used to generate the reports.”
IEMSA slams DA’s request
Meanwhile, the Executive Chairman of the Institute of Election Management Services in Africa (IEMSA), Terry Tselane says the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) request to have the United States (US) observe the upcoming general elections is a violation of the constitution.
The DA penned a letter to US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken to seek them to come and oversee May 29 polls.
Tselane calls on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to take firm action against DA.
He says, “That letter that is supposed to be coming from the DA is very strange indeed and it’s strange because the DA is an official opposition and you would have expected them to understand the rules and the laws of the country particularly the constitution.”
“ When you ask a foreign entity to basically come and do voter tabulations, election tabulation you are basically telling them I’ve got no confidence in the capacity of the electoral commission to run the election,” Tselane adds.
VIDEO: ANC slams DA over letter to US Secretary of State Blinken:
US Embassy reacts
The United States embassy in Pretoria has responded to the DA’s request to send an Election Observer Mission to South Africa ahead of the polls in May.
In a statement, the US embassy spokesperson in South Africa says the country is a sovereign democracy that runs its own electoral processes.
He says the Independent Electoral Commission has a longstanding and excellent reputation for conducting free and fair elections. This after DA sent a letter to Antony Blinken and other European countries requesting them to send observer missions to monitor the upcoming elections.
The International Relations department also shares the same sentiments, saying South Africa has had successful elections before. -Additional reporting by Ditaba Tsotetsi
