Police were investigating claims by the Inkatha Freedom Party that African National Congress supporters were seen pasting voter registration stickers into the identity documents of voters in KwaZulu-Natal, the Independent Electoral Commission said on Wednesday afternoon.
”We are in the process of getting the report of that investigation,” IEC chairperson Brigalia Bam told reporters in Pretoria.
Bam said registration stickers had been taken from a presiding officer in one KwaZulu-Natal area, but declined to elaborate. She stressed, however, that a person’s name had to be on the voters’ roll to be able to cast a ballot — a mere sticker was not enough.
Earlier, IFP deputy chairperson Musa Zondi released a statement to the media claiming that ANC activists were ”caught red-handed” inserting such stickers into the IDs of voters at the SJ Smith Hostel in Durban.
It said police have seized rolls of the stickers.
Bam said the ANC had assured her in a letter that it did not condone any election rigging. The party itself had asked the police to probe the matter. Provincial electoral officer Mawethu Mosery was also investigating the matter, she said.
Responding to the allegations, the ANC said in a statement: ”It is a mystery to the ANC as to how the IFP came to conclude that the individuals concerned are members of the ANC.
”We believe that anyone who violates the electoral law should be arrested and charged. The ANC secretary general [Kgalema Motlanthe] has also requested the national commissioner of the police to investigate this matter and has assured him of our full cooperation.”
The statements said the ANC was concerned that the IFP statement ”may be intended to lay the basis for a rejection of the election results should they not favour the IFP”. — Sapa