The MK Party, led by the ever-controversial Jacob Zuma, is wild.
A few hours to go till coalitions must be finalised, and they’re embroiled in more drama than your favourite soapie.
First, they have decided to boycott tomorrow’s parliament session where a new government is effectively put in place. The MK has even unsuccessfully asked the Constitutional Court for an urgent interdict to halt the swearing-in of new MPs and the election of the President. (The court was like, what? No. In layman’s terms, of course. 😆)
Zuma also hilariously misunderstood how quorum works in an interview with EWN, claiming parliament wouldn’t be able to function without the party’s 58 MPs – the party secured 14.5% of the vote. Parly only needs a third of its 400 members (which the ANC alone accounts for) to do normal business like tomorrow’s swearing-in, so… he’s wrong. If those specific MK MPs continue their boycott, they will ultimately lose their position. Still, in a fiery letter to Parliament, the MK party’s advocate, Nqobile Zungu, insisted that the National Assembly can’t lawfully conduct business without its MPs. Parliament’s chief financial adviser, Zuraya Adhikarie, had the best response, saying the sitting would go ahead… and that parliament would cancel travel arrangements for the MPs to avoid “fruitless and wasteful expenditure”. 😂
The party has alleged election fraud and rigging. But, get this, they told the court they had evidence of this but weren’t ready to reveal it “at this stage”. Right. As you know, the election was declared free and fair by literally everyone else.
Meanwhile, the party’s original founder, Jabulani Khumalo, lost his legal bid to get the Electoral Commission of South Africa to record him as the MK’s rightful leader over Zuma.
The court said yesterday that this was a legal non-starter because Khumalo was expelled from the party and did not challenge his expulsion.
The chaos! Any other party that did as well at their first election would be strategising and making plans to grow further. Thank goodness, then, for our constitution and democracy that the MK is this disorganised and woefully ignorant of the law!
