MK Party tells its agents to protect women voters and follow the Electoral Code of Conduct

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party has told its agents and volunteers to uphold the Electoral Code of Conduct, to respect others, to tolerate opposing views and to follow instructions from the Electoral Commission, so that everyone, and women in particular, can take part freely and safely.

The instruction was published by the party’s own account on X on 4 November 2026, under the party’s #VoteWise and #VoteMKParty hashtags. It is addressed to the people who work the ground for the party, its agents and its volunteers, rather than to the public at large.

In the post the party asks its people to “uphold the Electoral Code of Conduct”, to “respect others, tolerate opposing views, follow IEC instructions and ensure everyone, especially women, can participate freely and safely.”

The wording puts the party’s own footprint at the polling station and in the ward at the centre of the message. Party agents are the people who watch the ballot, raise objections, escort voters and stand between a voter and a queue. The party’s instruction is that those people work within the code and inside the commission’s direction.

The singling out of women is the part of the message with the most weight behind it. Women queuing to vote, women working as party agents and women going to a polling station after dark are the voters most often described in South African public argument as exposed at the point of participation. The party’s own statement says it wants them able to participate freely and safely, and asks its agents to make that happen.

The reference to the code is the party’s own acceptance of the standards that bind everyone contesting an election. The code governs how parties, candidates and their agents behave towards one another and towards voters, and the commission is the body that administers it.

What the post does not do is say how the party will check that its agents follow the instruction. It names no reporting line, no consequence for an agent who breaks the code and no person responsible for enforcing it. A reader looking for the mechanism behind the words will not find it in the post.

It also does not set out the party’s position on any of the disputes that election periods tend to produce, whether over access to a polling station, the conduct of a rival’s agents or a complaint to the commission. The message is a standard of conduct, not a statement on a specific dispute.

The party’s hashtag #VoteWise frames the instruction as advice to its own ground force. Read plainly, the post asks its agents to be the people who keep a polling station calm rather than the people who make it tense, and to leave voters, and women voters in particular, free to cast a ballot without obstruction.

Whether the instruction is followed on the day is a question the record will answer at the polling station, not in the post. The party has put its standard in public and attached its name to it.

The Enquirer will keep the party’s public statements on the conduct of its agents alongside what is documented on the ground, and will report the outcome of any complaint about conduct that the commission records.