Law doesn’t require an independent audit: IEC
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has dismissed the grievances of 27 political parties challenging the validity of the election results.
The IEC will not appoint an independent audit firm nor rerun the elections.
The commission’s CEO Sy Mamabolo says the prescripts of legislation doesn’t require officials to accede to the parties’ demands.
“A basic tenant of a law is that ‘who alleges must prove’ and we have been called for that proof since Wednesday,” Mamabolo told the SABC.
A group of 27 smaller political parties are threatening to interdict the announcement of the results, which is expected on Saturday evening.
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They are demanding that an independent audit firm be appointed to probe irregularities or rerun the elections.
Mamabolo remains confident that the integrity of the results has not been brought into disrepute.
“But one has to measure it against the impact of materiality and what is the proportion of that problem in relation to the whole. It cannot be that we impute the whole because of arbitrations here and there.”
He says political parties will receive an update by midday on Saturday on the 1020 ballot boxes sampled by the statistician-general Risenga Maluleke for authentication.