Electoral court dismisses MK Party challenge to 2024 election results

Sowetan · 🇿🇦 public South Africa · Sep 25, 2026 · 336 words · By Ernest Mabuza

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What to know about Electoral court dismisses MK Party challenge to 2024 election results

The electoral court on Friday dismissed an application by the MK Party concerning the 2024 national and provincial elections.

Claims checked 10

Techniques found 0

Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center88%

Right12%

8 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

The electoral court on Friday dismissed an application by the MK Party concerning the 2024 national and provincial elections.

Why it matters

The party challenged the integrity and reliability of the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) digital votes capturing and reporting system, relying principally on the “leaderboard incident” of May 31 2024.

Common ground

This was when the public-facing results dashboard and leaderboard went blank for about two hours.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Follow-up questions

What concrete event or decision sits underneath the headline: Electoral court dismisses MK Party challenge to 2024 election results?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that The electoral court on Friday dismissed an application by the MK Party concerning the 2024 national and provincial elections?
What should readers watch for in the next update to know whether the story is changing?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://www.sowetan.co.za/news/2026-09-25-electoral-court-dismisses-mk-party-cha…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 10 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

info Single Source 6

help Insufficient Evidence 2

verified Verified By Reference 2

info

Claim 1: “The electoral court on Friday dismissed an application by the MK Party concerning the 2024 national and provincial elections.”

SINGLE SOURCE

One web search result explicitly confirms that the electoral court dismissed the MK Party's application concerning the 2024 national and provincial elections. No other independent sources were found in the provided evidence to corroborate this.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Progressive Caucus (PC) is a political alliance in the Parliament of South Africa, which formed in opposition to the Government of National Unity (GNU). Contrary to its name, the Caucus is not fou…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Caucus_(South_Afri…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — uMkhonto weSizwe Party (Zulu for 'Spear of the Nation' Party'), abbreviated as MKP, and often referred to as the MK Party, is a South African populist and democratic centralist political party founded…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMkhonto_weSizwe_Party

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — General elections were held in South Africa on 29 May 2024 to elect a new National Assembly as well as the provincial legislature in each of the nine provinces. This was the seventh general election h…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_African_general_ele…

+ 3 more evidence sources

info

Claim 2: “the only issue was that a system command or flag was inadvertently set to “not ready for display” during the extract, transform and load optimisation process.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided evidence contains generic search results for 'AT commands' and 'adb' commands, but nothing regarding the IEC's specific explanation of an 'ETL optimization process' or a 'not ready for display' flag.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — We found a common issue that adb is not recognized command. So we just to set the environment variable for searching the platfoem tools in windows 10.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzvlQsiBOdM

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web search NEUTRAL — About the IEC.Resources for and on parties and candidates, incl. party funding, and tools such as the Online Candidate Nomination System and Party Liaison Committee Document System.
https://www.elections.org.za/

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — 1 Overview The AH module supports AT command operation mode, allowing AT commands to be sent via UART or Ethernet port for parameter setting. Set up, for data communication.
https://anjielo.com/blogs/news/anjielo-wifi-halow-ah-module-…

info

Claim 3: “the public-facing results dashboard and leaderboard went blank for about two hours [on May 31 2024].”

SINGLE SOURCE

One web search result mentions the MK Party challenging the IEC's declaration of results, alleging manipulation while the public-facing results dashboard and leaderboard were affected. However, it does not explicitly specify the 'two hour' duration in the snippet provided.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — IEC 60320, entitled "Appliance couplers for household and similar general purposes", is a set of standards published by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that defines non-locking app…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — IEC most commonly refers to the International Electrotechnical Commission. IEC may also refer to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_(disambiguation)

+ 3 more evidence sources

help

Claim 4: “The court accepted that the audit trail demonstrated that results continued to be captured and edited during this period and that no data was lost”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found in the provided search results to support or contradict this claim.

verified

Claim 5: “the court held that the MK Party failed to follow the mandatory procedure prescribed by section 55 of the Electoral Act.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

The provided evidence mentions the court dismissed the application, but none of the search results contain the specific legal reasoning regarding 'section 55 of the Electoral Act'.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — For a European Future (Macedonian: За европска иднина, romanized: Za evropska idnina, Albanian: Për të ardhme evropiane) is the current name of the political alliance in North Macedonia led by the Soc…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_a_European_Future

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of members of the National Assembly of South Africa, elected in the 2024 general election, for the term 2024–2029.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Assembly_memb…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Your Macedonia (Macedonian: Твоја Македонија) is the current name of the political alliance in North Macedonia led by the VMRO-DPMNE (ВМРО–ДПМНЕ).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Macedonia

+ 3 more evidence sources

info

Claim 6: “The IEC explained that the entire election results system continued to run and remained fully operational and uncompromised”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided evidence mentions the IEC's homepage and the court's dismissal, but does not contain the specific statement from the IEC that the system remained 'fully operational and uncompromised'.

travel_explore

web search NEUTRAL — The 2024 Election National Results Operation Centre at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand, Gauteng. File photo: (Freddy Mavunda). The electoral court on Friday dismissed an application by the MK P…
https://www.sowetan.co.za/news/2026-09-25-electoral-court-di…

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web search NEUTRAL — Find all the election results for National and Provincial Elections, Municipal Elections, and Municipal By-Elections in our comprehensive dashboard.Signing the Electoral Code of Conduct marks a key mi…
https://www.elections.org.za/

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web search NEUTRAL — Why Russia’s Election Results Were More Revealing than You ThinkTLDR News EU560K • 5d agoLivePlaylist ()Mix (50+). 18:12. If Every Country is having a Debt Crisis... Who's Lending the MoneyThe Invisib…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qI0LTmSr38

help

Claim 7: “The evidence further showed that the incident had no impact on the capturing and verification of the election results.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found in the provided search results to support or contradict this claim.

info

Claim 8: “the court held that the party’s application to review the declaration of results was therefore not competent in law.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The provided evidence confirms the application was dismissed, but does not provide the specific legal terminology regarding the application not being 'competent in law'.

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web search NEUTRAL — EnlargeDownload Link Citation: The House Joint Resolution Proposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, June 16, 1866; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, 1789-1999; General Records of the …
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment

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web search NEUTRAL — How do applicants review their application status?The Trump Platinum Card has not yet been released. Applicants should join the waitlist now to ensure that they can be processed immediately after the …
https://trumpcard.gov/

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web search NEUTRAL — The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. W hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them wi…
https://ushistory.org/declaration/document/

verified

Claim 9: “It is alleged that the IEC acted unlawfully.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

While there is evidence of the MK Party challenging the IEC and alleging interference, the provided evidence does not explicitly use the word 'unlawfully' or confirm a specific legal allegation of unlawfulness beyond the general challenge to the results.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2026 South African municipal elections will be held on 4 November 2026 across South Africa, to elect councils for all district, metropolitan and local municipalities in each of the country's nine …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_South_African_municipal_e…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Multi-Party Charter (MPC), officially the Multi-Party Charter For South Africa (MPCSA), formerly known as the Moonshot Pact, was a pre-election agreement in South Africa that presented a united fr…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-Party_Charter

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+ 3 more evidence sources

info

Claim 10: “The MK Party, in its application, alleged that the IEC decided to deliberately interfere with a live and functioning digital vote-capturing and reporting system.”

SINGLE SOURCE

One web search result from Scrolla.Africa explicitly states that Zuma (MK Party) claimed the technical glitch was a 'deliberate interference, not a system crash'.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Delisile Ntshaba is a South African politician and a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa for the uMkhonto weSizwe party. Ntshaba was elected to the National Assembly in the 2024 general el…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delisile_Ntshaba

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+ 3 more evidence sources

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.