South Africa's ANC fails in bid to ban former leader Zuma's party from polls

The ruling party’s request that a competing opposition party be deregistered and barred from running in the next election was rejected by a South African court on Tuesday.

The ruling African National Congress party’s criticism of the Independent Electoral Commission’s handling of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s registration was found to be without merit by the Electoral Court, which also stated that the party ought to have contacted the Electoral Commission prior to initiating legal proceedings.

Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, left the African National Congress (ANC) in December and is currently the leader of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, sometimes known as the MK Party. Zuma led the country from 2009 until his removal in 2018 due to extensive corruption charges.

His popularity has contributed to MK Party’s emergence as a potentially important candidate in the next polls, particularly in his native province of KwaZulu-Natal, which is anticipated to be a major battleground in this year’s elections.

The party has the name of the ANC’s previous military branch, which was dissolved in the wake of apartheid’s racial segregation laws and white minority rule. The ANC will file a new lawsuit against Zuma’s party on Wednesday, arguing that it has no legal authority to use the name and trademark of the now-defunct group.

South Africa’s 29 May elections are expected to be highly contested with the ANC, once led by anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, under pressure to remain in power following declining support in successive elections as the country faces stagnant economic growth, high levels of poverty among its Black majority, and an unemployment rate of over 32%

According to recent polls, the ANC may dip below 50% of the national vote for the first since it came into power in 1994 when Mandela became the country’s first democratically-elected leader.