Labour Party counsel disputes IEC online portal was working properly

Counsel on behalf of the Labour Party of South Africa has argued that the assertions made by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) that its online portal worked well are untrue.

Advocate Chris Loxton argues that the IEC, by its own admission, said only 65% of parties managed to upload their documents under Section 27 of the Electoral Act by the relevant date (08 March 2024) stated in the election timetable.

However, the Labour Party says it was unable to comply with this deadline due to what it alleges were technical glitches with the IEC’s online portal.The party is seeking the urgent intervention of the Constitutional Court after the Electoral Court dismissed the party’s application to contest the upcoming national and general elections.

“There are frequent references to a handful or a very small minority of parties who were unable to upload their documents in time, that the vast majority of those who were required to do so did so successfully. That’s just untrue. 35% failure rate is not a small minority and a 65% is not a vast majority. What it indicates is that despite glowing reports from the service provider who said their system was working well and the argument that if some could do it, all could do it. There were significant difficulties.”

The Labour Party, the African Congress for Transformation and the Labour Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats are all appearing before the court. All applicants blamed their failure to comply with the IEC’s online portal, which they allege malfunctioned.

The Electoral Court however ruled in favour of the IEC, finding that evidence showed that the Online Candidate Nomination System functioned without issues at the relevant time.

Source: eNCA

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