The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has alleged that certain political parties orchestrated a coordinated strategy to undermine the credibility of the 2024 election results.
This comes in the wake of the Electoral Court dealing with over 40 cases linked to the country’s most recent general elections. According to IEC Deputy Chief Electoral Officer Masego Sheburi, the large number of legal challenges made the 2024 polls “the most litigated election in the country’s democratic history.”
While acknowledging that the commission is “not beyond reproach,” Sheburi stressed the importance of the courts’ decisions to dismiss all final election result challenges. He noted:
“What is worrying is that in this election we have had in excess of 40 legal challenges, and you could tell some were coordinated without evidence, and the true purpose was to impugn the good standing of the commission.”
Sheburi added that a widespread lack of trust in government and political parties likely contributed to the lower voter turnout in 2024, but underscored that every legal attempt to derail the election outcome was ultimately unsuccessful.
