MK Party unsatisfied with electoral results despite emerging victorious in eThekwini
The party secured first place in the city, garnering 38% of the vote in last week’s local government elections.
Alpha Ramushwana
Politicians at the IEC’s Results Operations Centre in Midrand, where the final local government election results were announced. Picture: Simphiwe Nkosi/EWN
Simphiwe Nkosi/EWN
Despite emerging as the biggest political party in eThekwini, the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party said it is not satisfied with its electoral results.
The party secured first place in the city, garnering 38% of the vote in last week’s local government elections.
However, the MK Party alleges that the vote in eThekwini was rigged and said it is considering its next course of action.
Speaking to journalists at the National Results Operation Centre in Midrand on Sunday night, the party reiterated that it was unhappy with the outcome.
In 2024, the MK Party contested its first national and provincial elections, emerging as the third-largest party in Parliament.
However, the party was not satisfied with the results and challenged the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) at the Electoral Court.
In last week’s municipal elections, the MK Party emerged as the third-largest party nationally but secured the most votes in eThekwini Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.
Despite these results, MK Party's first Deputy President, Duduzane Zuma, said the party is still not satisfied.
“There have been some massive hiccups. There have been some slowdowns and glitches. We looked at our numbers, and they were stagnated for a long period of time, which didn’t make sense to us.”
He said the party will now focus on coalition talks.
‘WHATEVER IS WRONG, WE WILL FIX LATER’
The MK Party in eThekwini said it has learned from previous experience and will waste no time starting coalition talks.
The MK Party emerged as the biggest political organisation in KwaZulu-Natal’s only metro, winning 86 seats in the metro council.
However, this is still short of the required 113 seats to form a majority.
In the 2024 general elections, the MK Party got the most votes in KwaZulu-Natal, with 45%.
However, the party failed to form a coalition government and was too busy being preoccupied with fighting the election results.
This year, the party has once again accused the IEC of rigging the election results against it; however, its mayoral candidate for eThekwini, Mxolisi Phakathi, said the MK Party is determined not to repeat the same mistake in the metro.
“We have to work for our people, so we can’t be out of government because we are still in fights with the IEC over discrepancies and disputes that we have, but we must. There are serious cases we have sent to the IEC, but what can we say? We are going to government, and whatever is wrong, we will fix later.”
Phakathi is part of the seven-member team mandated by the MK Party to conduct coalition negotiations.
Additional reporting by Thabiso Goba.