The MK party continues to stir controversy. This time an investigation has been opened as to whether the party submitted fraudulent signatures in order to take part in the elections. According to the City Press newspaper, a senior member of the party has opened a case in which he admits helping to forge some of the signatures. In response, the Independent Electoral Commission says it can only confirm that the ID numbers used as part of the party registration were not fraudulent.
The commission is now calling for a speedy investigation into this matter. Party spokesperson, Nhlamulo Ndlela when asked whether any signatures were forged said, “The MK Party is led by honest citizens whose aim is to change the issues and the status quo. As it pertains to this individual that is purporting to have been a member, and a senior member thereof, that’s not factual it’s not true he is not a senior member. He was a volunteer who happened to request to assist in collecting those signatures and just like with any other volunteer, we worked with him not knowing that this is an individual with a sketchy background.
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Again, he was working with us with an intent of wanting to find himself on our parliamentary candidate list which didn’t happen as we had discovered that this is an individual that was found to have been involved in fraudulent transactions and tenders and therefore arrested. So, we would not and we will not have such people on our list, and upon him realizing that he was not on the list does he now take this matter to court.
When asked whether or not the MK Party was aware of his sketchy past, Ndlela said, “No we were not aware until at a point at which we were identifying members as civil society members whom we could place on our list and obviously we had to do certain checks and discovered this.”
uMkhonto is the newly-formed party led by the ANC and South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma. It was founded in December 2023 amidst much controversy that it took much of its likeness from the ANC’s military wing, also known as uMkhonto Wesizwe.
