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The ANC’s Pule Mabe has urged political parties calling for a rerun of this week’s national and provincial elections to proceed with caution.
The parties, which each received a small number of votes, are arguing that there were “numerous irregularities” in the voting process.
“The ANC understands that it is participating in a multiparty process facilitated through the IEC’s party liaison committee of which all these parties who participated in the elections are also part.
“As you see the party liaison committee is meeting,” said Mabe, who was speaking to City Press at the IEC’s results operations centre in Tshwane.
“We are expecting all the contentious issues to be raised within that process and addressed in accordance,” said Mabe.
His comments were made on Friday morning, a day after a group of smaller parties banded together in solidarity and called for a rerun of the elections arguing that the voting process was “seriously flawed”.
Read: Smaller parties band together, question the credibility of the elections
The smaller parties’ mini protest at the operations centre occurred after the Electoral Commission announced on Thursday that it would be probing allegations of “double voting” that took place during Wednesday’s national and provincial elections.
The IEC has since done an about-turn and on Friday denied that there was any evidence of double voting, this after the commission had earlier confirmed the arrest of 20 people in KwaZulu-Natal over allegedly trying to vote more than once.
IEC commissioner Mosotho Moepya said: “Despite the 20 arrests there was no evidence of electoral fraud, some of those who were arrested didn’t vote at all.”
The ANC has blamed the IFP of making reckless allegations and getting its supporters arrested in order to raise suspicions over the credibility of the elections.
However, EFF national chairperson Dali Mpofu dispelled allegations of voter tampering and said so far his party still had faith in the credibility of the electoral process.
Mabe, when asked whether the allegations made by these smaller party tainted the elections credibility especially with foreign observers, refused to address the matter, saying: “Let’s not be pre-emptive at this stage as we will be getting ahead of ourselves, all we can do is allow the party liaison committee processes to run their course.”
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