It is official: former president Jacob Zuma will not be returning to Parliament after the elections. | IHSAAN HAFFEJEE | AFP
Durban — There was a mixed reaction on whether the Constitutional Court ruling on former president Jacob Zuma’s eligibility to go back to Parliament would affect the party negatively or not.
On Monday, the Concourt concurred with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) that section 47(1)(e) bars the former president from holding public office again.
The clause forbids anyone who was convicted and sentenced to 12 months in prison without an option of a fine from holding public office. The court also agreed with the IEC that contempt of court was an offence like any other and therefore it could not be separated from section 47(1)(e).
The court, therefore, set aside the Electoral Court order which had ruled that since the contempt of court was a civil offence, section 47 (1)(e) did not apply to Zuma because the section referred to the criminal offence.
Reading the judgment, Justice Leona Theron said the ordinary meaning of an offence is to be given to the word that it is an offence.
“It is not for a court to limit the scope of the provision. The section clearly says convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months without an option of a fine. Mr Zuma was convicted and found guilty of a crime of contempt of court. This court concludes that Mr Zuma was convicted of an offence and sentenced to more than 12 months in prison for the purposes of section 47(1) (e) of the Constitution and is accordingly not eligible to be a member of and not qualified to stand for election to the National Assembly,” read the judgment.
Weighing in on the judgment, both political analysts Professor Bheki Mngomezulu and Ongama Mtimka downplayed the impact of the ruling, saying it would not negatively affect the party when voters take to the polls on Wednesday next week.
Mngomezulu said the judgment would have no serious implication, because it did not say that the former president should be removed from the ballot, adding the MKP supporters would still see Zuma on the ballot.
Mtimka concurred, saying that the party’s leadership always knew that Zuma was ineligible but had intentionally decided to ride on his populist wave to get his political capital.
He said to the MKP’s credit, the judgment bolstered its stance that the judges were against him.
However, another seasoned political analyst, Professor Susan Booysen, said the implication would be negative since she did not see the party finding a replacement to match Zuma’s popularity and one who could argue for his ideas in Parliament in his absence.
Reacting to the judgment, the party’s interim secretary-general Sihle Ngubane said although they were disappointed, the judgment would not cause any problem since all party members take a directive from Zuma as the leader of the party.
In 2021, the Concourt convicted Zuma of contempt of court and sentenced him to 15 months in prison without an option of a fine on allegations of state capture, corruption and fraud in the public sector.
Zuma served an effective three months of his 15-month prison sentence and was released on medical parole on September 5, 2021, by the National Commissioner of Correctional Services.
Zuma served his sentence at the Estcourt Correctional Centre.
On November 21, 2022, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that this process had been unlawful and ordered Zuma to return to prison.
He returned to prison on August 11 and on the same day, President Cyril Ramaphosa and Justice Minister Ronald Lamola granted him and more than 9 000 other prisoners a special remission of sentence due to prison overcrowding.
The IEC said on Monday that Zuma’s name would be removed from the parliamentary list.
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