IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s attempt to stop the traditional council elections from taking place on Sunday was stymied in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday.
Judge Trevor Gorven dismissed Buthelezi’s application with costs and did not provide reasons owing to the urgency of having to rule on the matter.
Buthelezi brought the application in his capacity as a traditional leader.
However, the presence of IFP member Lionel Mtshali during court proceedings earlier in the day raised suspicion among members of the Congress of the Traditional Leaders of SA that the matter was politically motivated.
The congress’s Tshepo Dlamini said traditional leaders had seen no problem with the compilation of the voters’ roll, the point of Buthelezi’s contestation.
While Buthelezi was disappointed with the verdict, he said that it was not the end of the road. “My legal team will study the verdict once it is available, and we will consider all options,” he said.
Rubbishing that the case was politically motivated, he said the allegation was “nothing short of absurd”, adding that it came from an organisation that was “part and parcel of the ANC”. Mtshali had attended in his capacity as a member of the KZN legislature, he said.
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Nomusa Dube, against whom the application had been brought, was pleased.
“We now call on all our people to go out in their numbers to vote in this important election,” she said.
The elections are meant to democratise traditional leadership structures, which govern rural communities.
They give voters an opportunity to elect 40 percent of traditional council members, with the remaining 60 percent appointed by traditional leaders.
Advocate Alistair Dickson, for the MEC, said that there had been nothing irregular or unlawful about the procedure adopted in compiling the voters’ roll. - The Mercury