File Photo
The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has again claimed that the life of the computer expert backing its challenge to the 29 May election results is in danger.
The party’s lawyer, Barnabas Xulu, said Vusi Mhlongo’s smallholding had been attacked over the weekend and his workers assaulted by armed men.
Xulu made the claim in papers submitted to the electoral court on Monday as part of the party’s second application to have the results of the vote set aside and to force President Cyril Ramaphosa to order a re-run.
The party secured 45% of the vote in KwaZulu-Natal and 17% nationally, but claims that it was robbed of a two-thirds majority through manipulation of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) information technology system.
It withdrew an initial application it made in June, and the IEC sought a punitive costs order against the party over its alleged abuse of the legal system.
The party has gone back to court and tabled a report by Mhlongo, a former senior employee of the KwaZulu-Natal government’s Moses Kotane Research Institute, which it says proves its thus far unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
Last month the party requested an extension until 29 November to file further affidavits by its national chairperson, Nkosinathi Nhleko, and a second report by Mhlongo in response to an affidavit by IEC chief executive Sy Mamabolo challenging his qualification and findings.
In the application for condonation of the late submission of the documents, Xulu said the delay had been created by death threats Mhlongo received and the disciplinary action brought against him by the Moses Kotane Institute.
Xulu claimed that Mhlongo’s employees were assaulted and held at gunpoint during the early hours of 1 December and that “it is believed the attack was politically motivated”.
He provided the court with case numbers relating to both incidents and with regard to the disciplinary process against Mhlongo — over which he and the Moses Kotane Institute had since reached a confidential agreement — which had delayed consultation.
Xulu said he had also required more time to file the papers because he needed to respond to assertions by Mamabolo in his founding affidavit and the failure of the electoral body to provide the party with accessible electronic versions of information it had requested.
The IEC had given the party a deactivated VPN to “create the impression that it has complied with requests for information when in fact our client has never been able to access the purported link”, he wrote.
Xulu said the party had not anticipated any of this when it made the application for the first extension and had “ no intention… to be disruptive and or to disregard its self-imposed time extension”.
In his affidavit, Nhleko said Mamabolo had argued that the application constituted vexatious and frivolous litigation and an abuse of court process and that the party had failed to comply with section 55 of the Electoral Act and electoral court rules in bringing the application.
Nhleko said Mamabolo had challenged Mhlongo’s expert status and had argued that his report should not be admissible as evidence in the court proceedings.
Although these assertions would be dealt with in heads of argument at a later stage, Mamabolo had not provided “any answers to the main and critical issues raised in both my founding affidavits that are supported by the expert report”.
Mamabolo had unsuccessfully “tried to mystify the commission’s election systems and processes seemingly to validate his bizarre contention that such systems and processes are unintelligible even to the expert of Dr Mhlongo’s calibre”.
Nhleko said Mamabolo’s approach to legitimate contentions in the found affidavit had been “bellicose” and “unfortunate” and was “clearly intended to bully the applicant by berating it and launching unjustified attacks on its contentions without any supporting evidence for the attacks”.
He said Mamabolo had made a “glaring attempt” to “misrepresent and misdirect the focus of the application and the critical factual issues relating to whether the declaration of the results of the 2024 national and provincial elections as being free and fair is justified”.
Nhleko said the party was bringing the application on “sound and solid grounds” and that there was “nothing scandalous” about it.
“MKP is justified in seeking accountability from the commission in respect of the manner in which the 2024 national and provincial elections were conducted. This is very critical to the sustainability of our constitutional democracy,” he said.
The attack on Mhlongo and the expert report by Mamobolo was “as unfortunate as it is unfounded” and appeared to “coordinate” with the workplace disciplinary process brought against him, Nhleko added.
This treatment was “despicable and irresponsible” and “should be deprecated as an irresponsible attempt to undermine the court’s adjudicative process”, he said.
He said Mamabolo had not provided expert evidence to prove a lack of expertise on the part of Mhlongo, who had submitted a second report to the court as part of his response to the attack on his credibility and that of his findings.
“The report of the expert paints a very glaring and deeply concerning series of technical lapses that are inexplicable in any other way other than an attempt to subvert the true expression of the democratic will of the people,” Nhleko said.
He asked the court to make a finding on whether Mamabolo was qualified to express an opinion on the work carried out by Mhlongo — and his qualifications, which included a PhD in information technology.
Nhleko said there was no credible basis for the IEC’s request for a punitive costs order against the party over the application that it had withdrawn and that this was “abuse” to “punish the applicant for daring to ask the IEC to account for serious lapses in its management of the elections”.
“On the basis of the evidence in this application, it is clear that the IEC failed to deliver on its constitutional mandate to deliver a free, credible and fair election in violation of the constitution and the constitutional rights of citizens,” he said.
The court has reserved the right to dispose of the matter on papers without oral hearing.