ConCourt rejects Zuma bid to stop parliament sitting

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ConCourt rejects Zuma bid to stop parliament sitting

9:00 CAT | 13 Jun 2024

Image: Bloomberg

Lawmakers are due to elect president, speaker of legislature

Zuma’s party claims vote was rigged; hasn’t provided evidence

South Africa’s top court dismissed an application filed by a party led by former President Jacob Zuma to interdict the nation’s parliament from convening on Friday on the grounds that it was improperly constituted.

Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party, which won 14.6% of the vote in May 29 elections, argued that the vote was rigged and that its challenge to the outcome must run its course before the National Assembly meets to elect a new speaker and the nation’s president.

“The application must fail on the merits,” the Constitutional Court said in a ruling handed down on Wednesday. “The applicant has not made out a case for the granting of an interim interdict as it has neither shown that it will suffer irreparable harm if the interdict is not granted.”

The MKP, as the party is known, hasn’t substantiated its claim of gerrymandering and didn’t approach the Electoral Court, which adjudicates in election-related disputes.

Zuma led South Africa for almost nine scandal-marred years before the ruling African National Congress forced him from office, and it suspended him from his ranks last year after he said he would campaign for the MKP.

The election failed to produce an outright winner, meaning the ANC will have to partner with one or more rivals if it wants to retain power.

The MKP, which won 58 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly, said it will only partner with the ANC if it replaces President Cyril Ramaphosa, a demand that was flatly refused. It has threatened to boycott parliamentary proceedings pending the outcome of its dispute with the electoral body.

Source: Bloomberg