A Vryheid man wants to take his fight against voter registration fraud to the Constitutional Court.
|||Durban - Three months after his successful legal action against the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), a Vryheid man wants to take his fight against voter registration fraud to the Constitutional Court.
Andre Lotter, a former ANC councillor, has filed an application for leave to appeal against parts of April’s Electoral Court judgment.
Although the court found against the IEC and in his favour by postponing a by-election in Abaqulusi (Vryheid) municipality’s ward 22 and ordering an investigation, Lotter wants more.
In his application he argues that the IEC investigation was brief and “pathetically inadequate”, even though it found that more than 1 100 people had been fraudulently registered to vote in the by-election.
He wants an independent commission of inquiry, and the appointment of the public protector or the Hawks to investigate voter registration irregularities in his ward.
Lotter says that if a commission is appointed, it should include members of the public and himself.
“It is impossible for the IEC to be judge, jury and executioner in a matter of this importance where fairness of elections in South Africa needs to be ensured,” Lotter says in his application.
Lotter accused the IEC of having failed to prevent a prima facie case of electoral fraud on a massive scale.
“This is a situation that threatens our democracy nationwide,” he said.
“Serious steps must be taken to ensure that our democracy is not endangered by (a) watchdog (the IEC) that has fallen asleep, or worse, which is henceforth acting on the orders of the ruling party of the day.”
Lotter also contends that in conducting the investigation, the IEC had no real desire to bring guilty parties to book.
“There has been no single indictment of any political party or of a single political activist that orchestrated the prima facie electoral fraud or of any individual electoral fraudster who registered illegally for the by-election,” he said.
“Why focus only on removing a few names from the voters’ roll but forget about finding out who incited these people?”
He believed the IEC had only scratched the surface when it came to electoral fraud in the Vryheid by-election, which was postponed to August 7.
He said that since 2011 the number of voters in the ward had increased by about 2 800.
Therefore, Lotter said, there were 2 800 voters who should be investigated, but the IEC had indicated to him that it would probe only 1 400.
Mawethu Mosery, the KZN electoral officer, confirmed that the commission had been served with the papers, saying it was considering its response.
For now, the IEC was preparing for the August 7 by-election, and confirmed that Lotter should submit his documents to the IEC by Friday if he wanted to contest the election.
Other candidates already registered are from the ANC, IFP, the NFP and the ACDP.
The electoral commission had ruled that he be allowed to contest the election after he was first barred from doing so, having attempted to pay the registration fee with cash and not providing a bank-guaranteed cheque as required.
But Lotter told the Daily News on Thursday that he would not take part in a “fraudulent” by-election and would not be submitting his documents.
He has requested 24-hour protection from the police, claiming his life is under threat.
In a letter that forms part of the documents submitted to the Constitutional Court, Lotter claims that recently two men tried to break into his home, and that his dog was severely beaten six weeks ago.
He believed the attempted housebreaking was linked to the electoral and constitutional court application.
bheki.mbanjwa@inl.co.za
Daily News