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Durban – The National Freedom Party is heading to the Pietermaritzburg High Court to have the announcement of the local government elections results halted amid claims that the Electoral Commission shunned its request for a recount in eDumbe Local Municipality.
In a statement on Thursday morning, NFP secretary general Canaan Mdletshe said that they would on Thursday afternoon approach the Pietermaritzburg High Court seeking to halt the announcement of the results following the IEC’s reluctance to accede to the party's demand for a recount.
Mdletshe said that they were certain that in eDumbe, they had convincingly won at least seven wards, but final results from the commission shows that the party won six.
"We are challenging this in court. We have approached our lawyers and we expect them to go to court this afternoon. All we want is the recount of ward 1 and 3 because our own assessment and counting is that we were robbed.
"We laid a formal complaint with the commission yesterday (Wednesday) before 1pm. We then communicated with our lawyers. And after consulting with our legal team, they advised us to take the matter to court, hence our lawyer is preparing papers to file in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this afternoon. We want to halt the announcement of the final results scheduled to take place this afternoon,” Mdletshe said.
He said that the results cannot be announced or pronounced before their matter is resolved, because they had worked hard campaigning and they know that they deserve their win in eDumbe, hence their decision to go to court.
The NFP won the eDumbe Local Municipality with 33.5% of the vote after garnering 15 405 votes which yielded six seats in the council, pipping the ANC who received 23.5% of the votes after amassing 10 806 votes and five seats, while the IFP got 23.2% following 10 681 votes and five seats in the council. The story will be updated with the IEC’s response.
Political Bureau