Thousands of MK Party supporters expected outside court when an IEC official appears

Thousands of MK Party supporters expected outside court when an IEC official appears

Durban — Thousands of uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) supporters are expected to be outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court when an Independent Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) official appears in court on Tuesday.

Musawenkosi Mnikathi was hauled to court after he was allegedly found with ballot papers without supervision during the May 29 elections.

And the MK Party’s supporters have been attending the court proceedings.

Reggie Ngcobo, the party’s regional coordinator in the Moses Mabhida region, told the Daily News that they expected thousands of supporters to arrive for the court case.

"We have mobilised our supporters to attend the court case. We want justice to be served because we have been saying that we were robbed during the elections. We want the accused to be found guilty," said Ngcobo.

The MK Party has been a thorn on the side of the IEC, accusing the commission of failing to run the elections properly and alleging that the May elections were riddled with irregularities.

Leading the charge was MK Party leader, Jacob Zuma, who alleged after the hotly-contested polls that 9.3 million votes were unaccounted for.

Ngcobo said the claims of vote-rigging will be proven in court.

"The court case against the accused will prove that the elections were rigged. But the case is just the tip of the iceberg. We want an in-depth investigation to be conducted," said Ngcobo.

Thousands of angry MK Party supporters clad in camouflage fatigues marched to the high court in Pietermaritzburg during Mnikathi's first appearance last week.

Party secretary-general, Arthur Zwane said: "Our supporters will be in court. We want this case to be an example of the rigging of the votes in our country. We will continue to hunt the IEC officials who were behind the rigging of the votes.

"We will not rest until the perpetrators of rigging the votes are brought to book."

The MK Party won 58 seats in the 400-member National Assembly and 37 in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature, which has 80 seats.

Despite its excellent performance, the fledgling new party believes that it was robbed and has vowed to take the fight all the way to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands.

The 58 MK Party members of parliament initially boycotted the swearing-in ceremony of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

But they later relented and were sworn in last week. Among them were Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, and the former Western Cape judge president, John Hlophe, who is the MK Party’s chief whip in Parliament.

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