WORLD NEWS: SOUTH AFRICA’S TOP COURT RULES ZUMA ‘NOT ELIGIBLE’ FOR PRESIDENTIAL POLL
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The top court of South Africa decided on Monday that Jacob Zuma, the opposition contender who turned fiery former president and victim of graft, is not qualified to run for parliament in the general election that takes place next week.
The move will anger Zuma’s followers and fuel concerns about violent disturbances leading up to the May 29 election, which is already the most contested since post-apartheid democracy began in 1994.
The highest court dismissed Zuma’s appeal against an election commission verdict that his prior contempt conviction precludes him from holding public office, holding that the constitution forbids anyone serving a term longer than twelve months in prison.
Zuma, who left office in 2018 dogged by corruption allegations, was convicted of contempt of court during a case in 2021 and sentenced to 15 months. He eventually served less than three months in jail, but the court ruled this remission irrelevant.
“This court concludes that Mr Zuma was convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment… and is accordingly not eligible to be a member of and not qualified to stand for election to the national assembly,” Justice Leona Theron said, reading the judgment.
Even if Zuma’s newly created party is able to secure enough seats to nominate him, he will not be able to become president of South Africa since MPs choose the country’s president from inside. This is because the party chooses its own members after a general election.
En masse in the streets surrounding the court, supporters, some dressed in the military fatigues typically worn by his party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), are intent on securing enough seats, or two-thirds of the National Assembly, to amend the constitution.
However, surveys indicate that outside of KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, the party will not perform well.
The former president drew a huge 30,000-strong crowd to a stadium in Soweto, just outside Johannesburg, on Saturday, but spoke only in Zulu to his core support base.
“We are very disappointed. There is an agenda, of course, to delay the liberation of black people in this country,” MK party member Lindiwe Mtshali, 39, told AFP outside the court.
Mtshali, wearing a black MK Women’s League T-shirt, said the decision on Zuma’s candidacy was expected, but she added that the remaining MK candidates would still perform well on May 29, with their champion’s name and face still on ballot papers that have already been printed.
“We are resolute,” she vowed.
Since leaving office, Zuma has since fought several legal battles.
He founded the MK party to challenge his successor Cyril Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) in next week’s election, the first since 1994 that may see the incumbent fall short of an absolute majority.
The ANC has won every South African election since the country became a democracy in 1994, and Zuma served as the party’s fourth president between 2009 and 2018, an era that for many South Africans has become synonymous with official corruption.
Outside the court, Neeshan Balton, the 62-year-old executive director of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, which had joined the case to provide legal advice as amicus curiae, welcomed the ruling.
“It reaffirms that if you want to be a candidate, you must pledge as a candidate that you will uphold the constitution. The former president clearly was not going to uphold the constitution, and we are happy that he’s disqualified,” he said.
If Zuma’s outsider campaign cuts into the ANC’s traditional support base, Ramaphosa may be forced to negotiate a coalition with one or more of the many small opposition parties to ensure he is re-elected to the presidency.
The decision to strike Zuma from the ballot may also trigger a deadly wave of unrest. Rioting after his 2021 imprisonment left more than 350 people dead.
South Africa’s respected Independent Electoral Commission says ballot papers have already been printed with Zuma’s image on them, but he would be unable to sit as an MP if ineligible.
The ANC was the leading political force in the struggle of black South Africans against the former apartheid regime.
But late liberation leader Nelson Mandela’s party has struggled in the polls in the run up to this year’s vote, dogged by corruption allegations and soaring crime and unemployment rates.
Just under a third of the working age population is unemployed and the murder rate has reached 84 a day.
But the ANC still has a formidable nationwide electoral machine and has overseen the creation of a broad social welfare system. Many older South Africans remain loyal to its historic role.
AFP
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