D-day for deciding if Zuma may be included to the MK candidate roster

Following an application by his party objecting to his removal, the Electoral Court is due to rule on Wednesday over whether former president Jacob Zuma should be added to the list of candidates to Parliament.

Due to Zuma’s conviction and sentencing by the Constitutional Court for disobeying its order, the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party filed a motion to have him removed from the list.

According to Judge Dumisani Zondi, the court will issue its ruling today in order to comply with the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC) timeline for resolving complaints raised against candidates running for parliamentary seats.

Yesterday, the commission and the MK Party squared off over Zuma’s removal from the list of candidates.

For the IEC, advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi SC stated that case law made it abundantly evident that contempt of court is considered a criminal offense.

“In other cases, contempt is referred to as a crime or an offence,” he stated.


“People are only found guilty of offenses. Whether they are found guilty or not is unaffected by the process used to obtain the conviction. We do know that the process for contempt is a hybrid one. Justice Khampepe stated in her ruling in the Zuma contempt case that the situation is hybrid, consisting of both criminal and civil elements.”

“So we are dealing with someone who is a convict, who has been convicted of an offence.”

He added that the provision in the Constitution prohibiting persons who have received a sentence of more than a year in prison was clearly drafted by the framers.

Legislators should not be permitted to be lawbreakers, according to Ngcukaitobi.

Ngcukaitobi declared, “Mr. Zuma is one of the people precluded by the Constitution and that will never change.”

However, MK Party attorney Dali Mpofu SC contended


He went on to say that Zuma could not be removed from the list of candidates for Parliament by the IEC.

He asserted that the National Assembly held ultimate authority.

Mpofu contended that they were confronted with a grave issue that aimed to deny voting rights to millions of voters who desired to cast ballots for the candidate of their choosing.


Mpofu stated that Zuma was denied the opportunity to appeal after the Constitutional Court found him guilty and punished him.

“As everyone knows, there was no plea, no trial. He said that only Zuma had been in court without entering a guilty or not guilty plea.