Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has called for police to expedite their investigation into reports Jacob Zuma’s Umkhonto weSizwe MK Party (MKP) allegedly forged the signatures it submitted to the commission during the candidate nomination process.
The commission said it has noted media enquiries and reports alleging the party submitted fraudulent signatures in fulfilment of the candidate nomination requirements, and said a criminal complaint has been laid with police.“The commission calls on crime investigation authorities to expedite the investigations to establish the verity of the allegations. An expeditious investigation is essential for the conduct of free and fair elections,” it said on Monday.
“The commission confirms the signature portal of the candidate nomination system verified whether the identity numbers submitted were of registered citizens of the republic. In other words, this entailed establishing whether the person is a citizen, alive and registered on the voters’ roll.
“The commission had indicated in the parliamentary process during debates on the institutionalisation of the signature requirement that it would be impossible to establish whether the signatures proffered were indeed of those persons who purport to have given them.City Press reported on Sunday that the MKP has been accused of extensively forging signatures to qualify for the upcoming national elections. The newspaper said the claims came from a former senior official of the party in a statement submitted to Western Cape police last week.
In his statement, Lennox Ntsodo reportedly said in February he appointed a team of about 20 people to assist with the mass forgery of signatures after the IEC rejected the MKP’s initial application for registration.
The team allegedly fraudulently obtained names, identity numbers and cellphone numbers of jobseekers from a database of the Cape metro council. They also acquired personal details of members of a funeral association.
According to legislation, political parties must submit at least 15,000 signatures of members and supporters to register for this year’s elections and appear on the national ballot.
During a liaison committee meeting with political parties earlier this year, the IEC indicated it could check people’s identity numbers to determine whether they were registered for the elections. Regarding the submission of signatures, it said if there were no obvious errors — such as the same signatures or handwriting on the lists — it had to rely on the “good faith” of political parties.
The IEC’s deputy chief electoral officer Masego Sheburi recently admitted the commission did not have a signature database and could not verify whether signatures on supporter lists belonged to actual voters.
Meanwhile, the IEC reminded voters that the deadline for applications for special votes in this year’s national and provincial elections is closing on May 3.
All applications for special votes, for the purposes of home visits and voting station visits, opened on April 15 and will also close on May 3.
Home visits are intended for those voters who are unable to travel to voting stations, while special votes at voting stations are for everyone who is unable to be at the voting station on election day. Special voting will be conducted on the two days preceding election day, May 27 and 28, from 9am to 5pm.
Voters can apply by:
using the secured online application at www.elections.org.za;
SMSing your identity number to 32249 (R1 per SMS) for voting station visits only;
visiting your local IEC office and submitting an Appendix 1B form for a voting station special vote; or
visiting your local IEC office and submitting an Appendix 1A form for a home visit special vote. Forms can also be hand-delivered, and someone else can deliver a form on behalf of a voter.
The commission distanced itself from a widely circulated message claiming it has granted permission for everyone over the age of 60 to cast a special vote on May 27 and 28 at the polling station where they are registered.
“This is not a message from the commission. The IEC re-emphasises the general principle of election administration that voters must vote where they are registered. However, in the event a voter intends to be in a different voting district on voting day, such a voter must notify the commission of their intended absence from their voting district and must identify the voting station where they wish to cast the vote.”
Notifications in this regard will close on May 17.
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