It is difficult to accept that Jacob Zuma is serious about being an ordinary MP in the seventh legislature, but he has a major task ahead in ensuring that his supporters get on the same page as him and behave according to the electoral laws of the country.
On Monday, the Electoral Court reserved judgment in a case about his bid to become an MP for the MK party after the May 29 general election. In terms of the candidate list submitted to the Electoral Commission SA (IEC) by the MK, Zuma, who is still a member of the ANC, tops the list of candidates. In theory at least, this makes his position safe as far as those candidates the party wishes to deploy to parliament are concerned.
The crux of the court case — the third in recent months involving MK — is whether Zuma, a convict who was sentenced to an 18-month jail term for contempt of the Constitutional Court in 2021, can stand as a candidate. The law is clear: anyone convicted to a prison term of more than a year does not qualify.
An objection was raised — and upheld by the IEC — that Zuma cannot stand for election in next month’s polls. Ordinarily, this should be the end of it, but these are extraordinary times, and the courts are terrain in the election battle. As well as providing lawyers with a platform to argue it out, opposing political parties use the courts to stage rallies that are addressed by their leaders to drive home their message.
Zuma’s party, which has already won one of its three challenges, has exploited these platforms. It has already won the right to stay registered with the IEC. Two judgments are outstanding: the first relates to whether the party is infringing on the ANC’s MK trademark and the second is whether he can stand as an MP.
Before his ousting as president in February 2018, Zuma had served 10 years as ANC president, nine of these were as president of the republic. It is simply not believable that he would want to go and sit — for the first time in three decades — in the backbenches and give up the salary for life that comes with him being a former president.
Zuma does not need to be in parliament to steer the MK. He has already done enough to drum up support for the party in its three months of existence.
This is not without precedent. Ibrahim Babangida, a former military ruler of Nigeria, ran Nigeria for years through proxies without being on the ballot paper. Months after the death of its founder, the IFP still invokes Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s memory and spirit to bolster its fortunes. His face, including “let’s do it for Shenge”, appears on party T-shirts and posters.
Zuma can do the same. With MK having signed the IEC code of conduct, it is Zuma’s duty to remind his followers that democratic values are sacrosanct and that losing the case would not be the end of the MK’s startling arrival on to SA’s political landscape.
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