MK Party Lodges Section 65 Objection Over eThekwini ‘System Failures’ and Discrepancies
The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) has escalated political tensions at the eThekwini results center by launching a formal Section 65 objection against the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), citing severe irregularities and technological failures.
The statement, signed by Acting Secretary-General Ms Lindiwe Makubu, directly targets systemic issues plaguing the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality’s local government election tallies.
According to the document, the MK Party has identified extensive mismatches between the live digital capturing portals and the physical, handwritten results slips signed off by party agents at individual voting districts.
The official objection invokes Section 65 of the Local Government: Municipal Electoral Act 27 of 2000, which legally obligates the commission to probe structural disruptions capable of impacting the ultimate outcome of a ward or municipal allocation.
The party’s executive leadership laid out an aggressive list of interventions meant to halt the declaration of results until an extensive review takes place. In the formal grievance, the MK Party demanded:
An immediate independent audit of all disputed results across disputed voting districts, the immediate suspension of further processing of compromised tally sheets pending live verification, full legal access for independent forensic experts to analyze the background systems and data pipelines and complete freeze on the final declaration of election results until every outstanding statistical conflict is resolved.
The MK Party characterized its legal escalation as an unavoidable step to protect voters from compromised systems.
“The MK Party regards this intervention as necessary to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process, ensure transparency, and protect the democratic will of voters,” the communications desk stated.
The objection significantly complicates the final stretches of the eThekwini vote count, which has already been severely slowed by separate objections from smaller political groupings alleging missing paperwork and skewed numbers.
National Spokesperson Sifiso Mahlangu and Media Head Sipho Tyira confirmed that the party will wait for a formal response from the IEC before finalizing their next legal and political steps.
