The Electoral Court’s decision to keep former president Jacob Zuma’s face on the ballot offers assurance for human rights protection and some disturbing lessons for manipulative politicians who prefer to eliminate competitors.
This is according to policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist Nkosikhulule Nyembezi after the Electoral Court on Tuesday ruled in favour of Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) in its battle with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) over the decision to uphold the objections against Zuma running for Parliament.
The court ruled that the decision to uphold the objection to Zuma’s candidacy had been dismissed.
The IEC had said sections 47 and 106 of the Constitution set out the eligibility criteria and qualifications for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures respectively and thus Zuma was ineligible to contest the elections because of the 15-month sentence imposed on him for contempt of court.
Reacting to Tuesday’s court outcome, Nyembezi said: “It fundamentally reshapes the polity that is beginning to lean ever closer to exclusion and cancel culture towards affirmation of values such as dignity and equality in our participatory and representative democracy premised on the grounds that political rights operate on a presumption in favour of inclusiveness.
“The importance of these values was emphasised by the Constitutional Court back in 1999 in the August case on whether prisoners should be allowed to vote as follows: ‘The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy.
“The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood.’ Quite literally, it says that everybody counts.”
“Above all, Zuma’s affirmed right to be a candidate shows that the state’s duty to protect rights, even for those who might be regarded as outcasts in our society, is not weakened, but in fact emboldened by such a judicial intervention.
“This is especially so in the run-up to these historic elections that are predicted to introduce remarkable political changes.
“The rest of South Africa’s citizens should take note.”
In court advocate Dali Mpofu SC argued that Zuma was being disadvantaged by the IEC in its objection, adding that the commission had no legal standing to object to Zuma who was given a lesser sentence when his original sentence was remitted by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“We all know there was no trial, no plea. Zuma was the only person who sat in court without pleading guilty or not.
He is the only person in a country of 62 million who has been charged without pleading guilty,” he said.
Mpofu also argued that the IEC had no authority to remove Zuma from the list, adding that the decision lay with the National Assembly.
But advocate Thembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, for the IEC, argued that the commission was applying section 47 of the Constitution which was clear on the selection of candidates to Parliament, and that the remission did not change the Constitutional Court’s original sentence. MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said the Electoral Court’s decision vindicated their position.
“This is a historic and landmark ruling which asserts the rule of law. The time has come that the country returns to its rightful hands.
“We have seen what the IEC has done and this judgment confirms what we have been saying and we feel vindicated by the judgment,” he said.
Addressing his supporters outside court on Monday, Zuma said: “I never got to finish my second term. They forget that I was removed. “I still have unfinished business with Parliament. I want to return there,” he said.
Cape Times