South Africa’s highest court has banned former president Jacob Zuma from running for parliament in next week’s general election.
The Constitutional Court ruled that his 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court disqualified him.
Zuma was convicted in 2021 for refusing to testify at an inquiry investigating corruption during his presidency, which ended in 2018.
He has been campaigning under the banner of the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, after falling out with the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
MK general secretary Sihle Ngubane said the party was disappointed with the decision, but that it would not affect the party’s campaign and that Zuma’s face would remain on the ballot paper for the May 29 elections.
“He is still the leader of the party. [the judgment] It doesn’t affect our campaign at all,” he said.
South Africans vote for political parties, with candidates at the top of their lists winning parliamentary seats depending on the number of votes the party obtains.
Some MK members sang and danced outside the court portraying Zuma as a victim, while those inside the court – some dressed in traditional Zulu attire – sat silently as the sentence was handed down by judge Leona Theron on behalf of the court.
Zuma has not yet commented on the decision.
His supporters rioted after he was sent to prison in 2021, and some of his leaders threatened violence if the court disqualified him from running for parliament.
But MK officials have since changed their rhetoric, saying the party’s focus was on obtaining a two-thirds majority so that South Africa’s constitution could be changed and Zuma could return to power.
In court, his lawyers argued that because he was released after three months in prison by his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosathe remainder of his sentence was cancelled.
But the court disagreed, saying the time he actually spent in prison was irrelevant.
South Africa’s constitution prohibits anyone sentenced to 12 months in prison, without the option of a fine, from serving in parliament, in order to protect the integrity of the “democratic regime” established after the end of the racist apartheid system in 1994, Judge Theron said.
Ramaphosa told a local radio station that he “took note” of the decision.
“The court ruled, and as I have said many times, this is the highest court in the country and we have given the judiciary the right to arbitrate disputes between us under our constitution,” he said in an interview with 702.
Ramaphosa ousted Zuma as president in 2018 after a violent power struggle, and is leading the ANC’s campaign to extend his 30-year rule.
Zuma said last December that he could never vote for a party led by Ramaphosa and led the MK campaign. This will be the first election he will contest after being registered as a party last September.
The emergence of the political party raised the possibility that the ANC could lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in 30 years.
An Ipsos opinion poll released last month gave Zuma’s party 8% of the vote and the ANC 40%, as it loses support to MK and other opposition parties.
But some analysts suggest that, with the governing party intensifying its campaign in recent weeks, it could still surpass the 50% mark.
uMkhonto we Sizwe, which roughly translates to Spear of the Nation, is the original name of the armed wing of the ANC, which fought against apartheid.
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