SA: Zuma barred from contesting elections; Constitutional Court cites criminal conviction

By Associated Press

CAPE TOWN: Former South African President Jacob Zuma was disqualified Monday from running for a seat in Parliament in a national election next week because of a previous criminal conviction. The decision by the country’s highest court is bound to raise political tensions ahead of what might be a pivotal vote for Africa’s most advanced economy.

The Constitutional Court said that a section of the constitution disqualifying people from standing for Parliament if they’ve been sentenced to more than 12 months in prison without the option of a fine does apply to the 82-year-old former leader. Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 2021 by the Constitutional Court for contempt for refusing to testify at a judicial inquiry into government corruption.

Zuma cannot serve as a lawmaker until five years after that criminal sentence was completed, the Johannesburg-based Constitutional Court said. The ruling came nine days ahead of the May 29 election.

Zuma once led South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party but was forced out as its leader in 2017 and resigned as president in 2018 under a cloud of corruption allegations.

He returned to politics late last year with a new party and renewed his fierce criticism of the ANC and current President Cyril Ramaphosa, the man who replaced him as both party leader and the country’s president.

There was no immediate reaction from Zuma.

Next week’s election could be South Africa’s most important for 30 years, with the beleaguered ANC facing the biggest challenge to its long rule since the end of apartheid in 1994.

The ANC is struggling to hold onto its parliamentary majority and the election might force the country into a national coalition government. That would be its biggest political shift since the apartheid system of white minority rule was dismantled with the first all-race elections.

Zuma’s new party, called uMkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation), or the MK Party, is the newest threat to the ANC. The Constitutional Court ruling doesn’t prevent the party from contesting the election but stops Zuma serving as one of its lawmakers.

MK launched its manifesto at a soccer stadium on Saturday, with Zuma at the centre of the rally. Zuma appears on its election posters and is the face of its campaign.

South Africa’s independent electoral commission that governs its elections said Zuma’s image could remain on the party’s election regalia, but his name would be removed from its list of proposed candidates. Parties had to submit a list of their candidates for Parliament before the election.

South Africans don’t vote directly for their president, but rather for parties. Those parties then get seats in Parliament according to their share of the vote. The president is elected by lawmakers, meaning the party that holds the majority chooses the president. That has always been the ANC since 1994, but if it receives less than 50% of the vote this time, it will need a coalition to form a government and re-elect Ramaphosa for a second and final term.