PRETORIA: The Nelson Mandela Bay election has been thrown into crisis after the ANC said last night it would call for a new vote following the discovery of stacks of marked ballot papers lying unsecured in a tent at the IEC’s regional operations centre in Port Elizabeth.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and his deputy, Jesse Duarte, said the party would officially make this call today, within the deadline of 48 hours after the close of voting.
At the time of publishing, the IEC said it had not yet received a complaint, but the ANC was consulting its lawyers on whether to call for the result to be set aside or ask for a recount.
The move comes after the DA had already announced it would receive the majority of votes in Port Elizabeth, though it conceded it was unlikely to have an outright majority.
With 90 percent of votes counted by last night, the DA had a strong lead of just more than 46 percent, compared to the ANC’s 42 percent, with the EFF on about 4 percent, making a DA-EFF coalition the most likely scenario.
But if the ANC succeeds in getting a new vote, the fright its members have been given could change that picture. In terms of the Municipal Electoral Act, a party may lodge a complaint over irregularities in the counting procedure that may have a material effect on the outcome.
Should the IEC uphold the complaint, it may either amend the result or refer the matter to the Electoral Court, which has the discretion to set aside the result. Were it to do so, the election would have to be rerun. At the least, the ANC objection made it highly likely the result would be delayed.
Mantashe acknowledged that in the event there was not a new vote, none of the parties would achieve an outright majority. He said the ANC would rather be in opposition than go into a coalition with “fools”, in reference to the EFF.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane had already announced his party would be in a position to form a coalition government in Nelson Mandela Bay.
The outcomes in Tshwane and Johannesburg were also on a knife-edge last night, with the IEC expecting to declare the results only in the course of today.
In the rest of the country, the ANC suffered a number of reversals. It was hurt by the EFF, contesting municipal elections for the first time.
The loss of its symbolic birthplace in Nelson Mandela Bay and waning support overall is likely to prompt some deep soul-searching and intensify internal tension, putting the party on notice for the national and provincial polls in 2019.