South Africa’s top court has blocked former president Jacob Zuma from standing in this month’s general election, an intervention with potential implications for the May 29 poll.
Zuma, then with the ruling African National Congress, led South Africa from 2009 to 2018, when he resigned in disgrace amid allegations that he had allowed his administration to be infiltrated by corporate interests.
He was sent to prison for refusing to co-operate with a judicial investigation into corruption, but released last year, before launching his own uMkhonto WeSizwe (MK) party that has surprised analysts by polling above 10 per cent ahead of an election that is seen as the most consequential since the end of apartheid in South Africa 30 years ago.
The ANC is predicted to lose its parliamentary majority this month, an outcome that would force its senior figures led by President Cyril Ramaphosa to make a decision on whether to enter into a coalition with another grouping, though analysts say it was unlikely to partner with MK.
Ramaphosa, speaking on radio station 702, said he “noted the ruling” on Monday from the Constitutional Court that upheld an Electoral Commission decision that anyone convicted of an offence and sentenced to 12 months or more cannot serve in the parliament.
MK, whose supporters protested outside the court, shrugged off the ruling, with its secretary-general Sihle Ngubane telling local media that Zuma remained their leader and “will lead us” into the vote.
“We’re disappointed by the judgment but I’d like to emphasise this — President Zuma will be on the ballot paper,” he said.
While the court decision complicates the election process for Zuma and his party, experts said it could also benefit him. “If anything, this is a small positive for his party’s electoral hopes,” said Frans Cronje, an analyst who runs an advisory firm for private clients.
“Zuma has positioned himself as the victim of an out-of-touch elitist ANC, which has pushed him out and is now trying to punish him. He will use this ruling to reinforce that perception.”
He also said that the 82-year-old Zuma should, as party leader, still be able to call the shots in MK even while not being an MP. “This is not a political party in the normal sense. It was designed to be strategic leverage on the ANC,” he said.
Zuma and his party have proven surprisingly popular with voters despite their leader’s checkered history, particularly in the battleground province of Kwazulu-Natal from which Zuma draws his support.
Polling data from the Social Research Foundation this week put MK at 10.6 per cent of the vote based on a 66 per cent turnout. Its gains have mostly been at the expense of the ANC, which is now poling around 46 per cent, and Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters party which is at about 8 per cent.
Herman Mashaba, a businessman who leads the Action SA party that is also contesting this month’s elections, told the Financial Times that any other ruling from the Constitutional Court would have been an “indictment on our democracy”.
“Our constitution doesn’t allow criminals to go to parliament and represent the country,” he said.
He also said that while MK supporters were “most welcome to campaign . . . without Zuma as its leader, you don’t really have any MK party.”
Zuma was sentenced to a 15-month jail term in 2021 after he was found guilty of contempt of court for refusing to testify before a judicial commission. He ultimately only served three months after Ramaphosa granted a remission of sentence to a large group of prisoners, ostensibly to counter “overcrowding” in the country’s prisons.
However South Africa’s constitution states that anyone “convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment” cannot serve in the National Assembly, subject to any appeal. It was this view that the Constitutional Court upheld on Monday.
“Mr Zuma is not eligible to be a member of, and not qualified to stand for election to the National Assembly until five years have elapsed since the completion of his sentence,” Justice Leona Theron wrote in a unanimous judgment.
