The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) urges South Africans to reject any attempts to nullify the electoral outcome and delegitimise the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)’s work.
This is not to give the IEC a free pass on the alleged crookery in several voting districts. Political parties have produced electoral result slips that do not match the captured results on the IEC dashboard. This reflects a discrepancy and validates the grievances the political parties have raised. However, acknowledging these acts of crookery does not mean we should delegitimise the IEC’s overall work. It merely means the IEC must address these complaints on a case-to-case basis, from affected voting districts, not drag the country backward by calling for a re-vote. In addition, the IEC must hold to account, the officials who committed these misconducts and expel them from future electoral processes.
SAFTU salutes the citizens of our country for going in numbers to cast their votes in the seventh democratic elections. Despite glitches related to the internal incapacity of the IEC which caused delays and long cues, discouraging many from voting, the South African public who voted have decided on political parties of their choice.
The political parties who contested the elections knew that they were doing so in line with the constitution’s provisions and requirements of the law. Accordingly, they all signed the pledge of the electoral code of conduct, which denounce amongst others, threats against the Electoral Commission, members of the public, other parties, and the media.
Our call to each of them is that they must respect the population and the choices the people have made. If they have evidence of rigging, as they have picked up in some voting districts, they must submit those complaints to the IEC within the period prescribed by the law. We call on the IEC to attend to and correct each of these complaints but still be able to declare the results within a stipulated timeframe of 7 days.
- It is encouraging to observe the ANC preliminarily accepting the election results, showing acceptance that they could not achieve a 50 plus 1 to govern alone. They need a partner or partners to constitute a coalition government. No amount of threats can change the political reality of this electoral outcome.
- Equally, the Democratic Alliance (DA), Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) must accept that they did not receive sufficient votes to constitute a government alone. With few votes left to be counted, it is clear that they remain in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions.
- Commendably, the EFF has said in their press briefing that the correction of the crookery that was picked up in some voting districts can only change the voting outcomes marginally, not significantly. But they are willing to accept the electoral outcomes as reflected currently.
- SAFTU calls on all political parties to resolve the mismatches and crookery on a case-to-case basis, from affected voting districts, and not to drag the country backward by calling for a re-voting. Recounting in the affected voting districts can resolve the problem, not re-voting.
The rest of peace-loving South Africans must issue a clear message to all political parties not to turn our country into a bloodbath because they did not get what they wanted from the elections. Three hundred thirty black and poor working class people died during the July 2021 organised mayhem. We should not allow instability in our country because certain parties are not prepared to accept that South Africans rejected them on the ballot by giving them few votes.
We must stand ready to say no to opportunistic extremists who seek to impose the will of a minority through disguised threats of violence. We say no to efforts to shred our Constitution and subvert our country from the rule of law.
