Pretoria - The Democratic Alliance (DA) federal executive chairperson, James Selfe, said on Friday that his party had forged a partnership with smaller political parties in a bid to challenge the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to audit voting districts to root out double voting.
In a statement, Selfe said the DA had partnered with the Congress of the People (COPE), United Democratic Movement (UDM) and the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) following a meeting on Friday morning.
"We met in order to agree that the IEC conduct an audit of all voting districts where instances of voters voting more than once took place. Furthermore, a random audit of other voting districts must take place, in order to get an overall report of this issue," Selfe said.
"This proposal was taken to this morning’s National Party Liaison Committee (NPLC), and we are pleased to say that the IEC agreed to proceed with this critical audit. In order to ensure that the audit is transparent and done with integrity, the process will be overseen by political parties."
More than 30 smaller political parties on Thursday raised their objections with the IEC over alleged electoral irregularities in Wednesday's general election, citing certain instances of double voting at voting stations.
They have threatened to interdict the election and its results if the IEC does not appoint an independent auditor by 11am on Saturday.
Police have already arrested 24 people for alleged contravention of the Electorate Act pertaining to attempted double votes and double votes in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng.
But the IEC has contradicted the police on the matter.
It said on Friday that based on preliminary evidence, there was nothing that supported the claims that the arrested suspects were guilty of double voting.
Selfe said that when the official election results were announced on Saturday, "there should be no doubt in the minds of the people of South Africa that the election was not free and fair".
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