By Johnathan Paoli
THE Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has confirmed – it will be unable to remove the names of expelled members of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party from the candidate lists.
Effectively, this means that – for the first time – voters will be confronted with the option to still choose a candidate who no longer represents the political party they used to belong to.
IEC Deputy CEO Masego Sheburi said the electoral body would not be able to alter or remove some of the names of the MK party candidates – including former MK president and founder Jabulani Khumalo.
“In the case of the MK party or any other organisation – in terms of the law – leaders do not have a carte blanche right to remove any candidates’ names after the closing date,” said Sheburi.
Sheburi said that changes could not be made with the commission, but should rather be referred to the secretaries of the legislatures.
“We will gazette the lists as they are and we have no enabling legal instrument to change, adjust, alter or remove people’s names. Once the election results are announced, we will assign seats to people who were on the candidates’ list, transferring those to the chief justice,” he said.
Recently the MK party expelled five high level members – Jabulani Khumalo, Ray Khumalo, Bheki Manzini, Lebo Moepeng and Rochelle Davidson – on allegations of corruption and with links to rival political party the African National Congress (ANC) as well as creating unauthorised parallel structures.
On Friday the MK party is going head-to-head with IEC in the Con Court – after the elections body appealed the ruling of the Electoral Court, which found Zuma was eligible to run as a candidate in the May elections. This despite his 15-month prison sentence by the Constitutional Court, in June 2021.
The EC have argued that the former president’s 15-month prison sentence could not be read as a “sentence” for the purposes of the act.
Sheburi said the commission was approaching the court in order to find legal clarity surrounding the interpretation of the section and which held constitutional implications for the role of the commission.
“The fact that the commission is appealing, it is not because of the personalities involved, but it is because it understands that the decision of the Electoral Court has implications of constitutional matters that implicate the role and obligations of the commission,” he said.
The apex court will hear the matter on Friday, which will bring to finality the question of whether section 47 (1) (E) applies to the former president before any votes are cast.
INSIDE POLITICS
