Electoral Court to hear urgent application by MKP founder Jabulani Khumalo.

By Lehlohonolo Lehana.

The Electoral Court will today hear the case of the man who registered the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), Jabulani Khumalo, and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). 

Khumalo wants the court to declare invalid the commission’s registration of Jacob Zuma as the party leader.

In an affidavit filed on Thursday, Khumalo said he formed the MK party last year and applied to have it registered under his name on June 1 2023. 

That application contained a list of people chosen as the executive body of party with himself as president and other office bearers. 

“In light of this information recorded and recognised by the IEC, Zuma is neither the party leader, the president nor member of its executive committee. I am the president,” Khumalo said. 

Khumalo said Zuma, who was only the face of the MK’s election campaign and held no official position in the party, took a unilateral decision to expel him. 

He said Zuma made two distinct, unlawful and procedural decisions, which were unilaterally to remove him as president and terminate his party membership.

“It seems to me that (Duduzile) Zuma-Sambudla [Zuma’s daughter] forged my signature on a document I did not prepare and sent it to the IEC to create the impression he is now president. Perhaps therein lies the confusion. In it she claims I resigned as MK party leader and [was] replaced by Zuma, Khumalo said.”

The party’s emergence has raised the prospect that the African National Congress (ANC) could lose its parliamentary majority for the first time in 30 years ago.

MK’s support is mainly in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal, and the economic heartland, Gauteng.

These two provinces have the highest number of registered voters, and have been the main battleground in the election.

South Africans will be voting for the national parliament, and nine provincial legislatures.

An Ipsos opinion poll released last month gave MK 8% of the vote, and the ANC 40% as it loses support to MK and other opposition parties.

But some analysts suggest that with the governing party stepping up its campaign in recent weeks, it could still cross the 50% mark.

The ANC got 57.5% in the 2019 election.

Former President Thabo Mbeki, who remains popular among many voters, recently joined the ANC’s campaign in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, denouncing Zuma as a “wolf in sheep’s skin” and a “counter-revolutionary”.

Scroll to Top