Police hunt 15 who tried to barge into IEC’s Gauteng warehouse to ‘verify’ ballots

Police are searching for about 15 suspects who tried to force their way into the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) warehouse at 1st Street, Booysens in Gauteng. This facility stores the counted ballot papers from the 29 May elections.

According to national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, the group arrived at the warehouse on Tuesday and demanded entry, insisting on verifying whether all ballot papers had been accurately counted. The incident is being treated as a case of intimidation.

No arrests had been made at the time of publication.

“Police are investigating a case of intimidation after a group of 15 people presented themselves at the IEC offices at the warehouse in Booysens yesterday,” Mathe said.

Police were working diligently to identify and apprehend those involved.

“We will be studying all footage and evidence at our disposal to apprehend those behind this incident of intimidation that took place at the IEC offices warehouse. At this stage, nothing was taken. We are investigating the motive for the incident and who this group of people are.”

The incident adds to growing tensions surrounding the elections, which have faced scrutiny and allegations of irregularities. Former president Jacob Zuma, leader of the newly formed uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, has been a vocal critic of the results. He recently called for legal action and urged his supporters to protest against the legitimacy of the elections, claiming that more than nine million votes were unaccounted for.

However, MK has yet to present any substantial evidence to support its allegations. Its attempt to halt the National Assembly sitting through legal means was recently dismissed by the Constitutional Court.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Zuma slams GNU as ‘white-led unholy alliance’ as MK party decides to join Progressive Caucus

The IEC confirmed the incident at its Gauteng warehouse on Tuesday, 18 June 2024. 

“As a matter of course, the Electoral Commission expands its footprint of storage sites ahead of each election to ensure storage of electoral supplies as close as possible to points of use,” it said. 

“Following the conclusion of the elections, the local storage sites are rationalised and material is rolled back for storage and safekeeping at a centralised facility. During such roll-back of material from a local storage site in the inner city of Johannesburg, a group of persons interfered with the handling of materials and subsequently followed a truck used to transport the material back to the provincial warehouse.” 

The commission also confirmed that nothing had been taken from the warehouse, and expressed gratitude to the police for their swift response which ensured the safety of IEC staff and the integrity of the stored materials. 

The commission recently updated the tally to reflect the total number of votes from the two National Assembly ballots and final seat allocation following the elections. This caused another uproar on social media and the IEC had to clarify: “In the 2024 elections, registered voters received two ballots for the National Assembly, one national ballot and one regional ballot. Just over 16 million registered voters voted, casting 31.92 million ballots across the nine regional and national ballots.” DM