Chaos Is The Point: Zuma threatens IEC, and daughter Duduzile attacks its Commissioner Janet Love

When asked what evidence the party had of vote-rigging, MK said it was sub judice, a legal concept that no longer exists in South African law as it is meant to protect a jury from influence. Instead, it is often used to shield information or spread disinformation under the cover of a mock legality.   

Zuma’s threat and demand are unprecedented in 30 years, where all parties which have run for elections have abided by IEC rules and felt fairly treated by its intricate system of consultation with party liaison committees.

The IEC said at a briefing that its results declaration on Sunday, June 2, will proceed as planned.

Zuma has a beef with the IEC, which stopped his candidature. As his start-up has romped into third position nationally and is KwaZulu-Natal’s largest party by far, he has steadily upped the ante against the electoral body, finally issuing the ominous warning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5WYLaC3cDM

Zuma is barred from standing as a candidate by the Constitution because he was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment for contempt of court in 2021. The MK party insisted on putting him on its candidate list and then went to court when the IEC excluded him, forcing the institution into a court case. The ConCourt ruled against him, but that did not stop the attacks. 

(See a summary of the Constitutional Court judgment here.)

Three days before the May 29 election, MK party members illegally entered a voting station warehouse in Hammarsdale, KwaZulu-Natal, recorded the voting material stored there and then created a viral disinformation thread alleging the material was being used to rig the election.

The IEC explained why it was untrue and said it would take legal action against MK party members. The party has drawn the IEC into several similar battles ahead of Zuma’s eve of declaration gambit.

The purpose may be to destabilise the Commission and cast doubt over the election outcome. Zuma has been joined in his bid by African Congress for Transformation (ACT) boss Ace Magashule, who was dismissed as secretary-general by the ANC. He has gone on to start ACT, which received a tiny number, 0.2%, of votes, with 99% of the voting districts counted by 6pm on June 1.  

Magashule alleged the party was set to win the Free State, but the number of votes it received shows this to be patently untrue and almost comically exaggerated. 

However, with a slavish media contingent repeating every word of the allegations and with social media’s insatiable appetite, lies quickly can become truths. 

Zuma alleged that "the machines were being done things that's wrong”, he said about a short period when the IEC’s public-facing results portal went down. Now, MK has ratcheted up the tension, not only warning the IEC not to release the results as planned on Sunday, June 2, but also escalating its demands from a recount to a re-vote. 

At the results centre, MK’s Duduzile Zuma also demanded that IEC Commissioner Janet Love be arrested for alleged vote-rigging, as this Independent Media report shows. Love has come under repeated attack from MK for bias, even though both the Electoral Court and Constitutional Court have cleared her of pre-judging Zuma's candidacy. Both courts found that, at a media conference, all she did was set out what Section 47(2) of the Constitution says about when candidates sentenced to periods of imprisonment can and can’t stand for election. 

MK has signed up to the Electoral Code of Conduct, which enjoins parties not to attack the IEC, and to abide by its tried-and-tested systems of dealing with objections and allegations of electoral malfeasance. 

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