MK Party loses court bid to overturn 2024 election results

The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has lost its court bid to declare the 2024 national and provincial elections invalid.

The party had challenged the 29 May 2024 election results, citing alleged discrepancies in the electoral process and questioning the integrity and reliability of the system used by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to capture, tabulate and report the results.

MK PARTY LOSES CASE ON 2024 ELECTIONS

At the centre of the MK Party’s court challenge was an incident on 31 May 2024 when the IEC’s public-facing results dashboard and leaderboard went blank for about two hours during the counting process. The party alleged that the incident raised questions about the integrity of the results system.

As part of its protest against the election results, the MK Party previously boycotted the first sitting of the National Assembly, citing alleged discrepancies in the electoral process. The party also urged Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and Secretary to Parliament Xolile George to postpone the first sitting, claiming it would be unconstitutional. Other members of Parliament from various political parties, however, took their oaths of office.

On Friday, 25 September, the Electoral Court dismissed the application, finding that the MK Party had not followed the mandatory procedure required under Section 55 of the Electoral Act to challenge the declaration of results. The court also found that the party had not demonstrated that the IEC’s results system lacked integrity.

The court accepted evidence that the results system continued operating during the dashboard outage, with results still being captured and edited, and that no data was lost. It also found that the incident did not affect the capturing and verification of the election results.

Today the Electoral Court has dismissed MK Party’s case disputing the 2024 national and provincial elections.

The Court says MKP’s claims that the results were manipulated are unfounded. pic.twitter.com/sg0rWokZMt

— Mbekezeli (@MbekezeliMB) September 25, 2026

Reacting to the judgment, MK Party spokesperson Sifiso Mahlangu told eNCA that the party was seeking justice for millions of people who voted for the party but whose votes, he claimed, were not counted.

“We compiled this evidence in our court battle with the IEC. We confirmed this through IT experts of leading brands in South Africa,” said Mahlangu.

He said the party had argued that it was owed about 900,000 votes and disputed its position as the third-biggest party nationally.

“We don’t believe that we were the third-biggest party in South Africa, we believe [we] contended for the second position or we were the biggest party in South Africa,” he said.

IEC WELCOMES JUDGEMENT

Meanwhile, the IEC has welcomed the judgment, saying its position throughout the proceedings was guided by its responsibility to administer elections in accordance with the Constitution and electoral legislation and to protect the integrity and credibility of election outcomes.

“Following the clarity provided by the judgment, the Commission will now finalise the independent and external audit of the result system to be used in the 4 November 2026 Local Government Elections,” the IEC said.