South Africa’s highest court has barred former president Jacob Zuma from running in next week’s parliamentary elections.
The Constitutional Court ruled that his fifteen-month prison sentence for contempt of court disqualified him.
Zuma was convicted in 2021 for refusing to testify in an investigation into corruption during his presidency, which ended in 2018.
He is campaigning under the banner of the newly formed party uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), after falling out with the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
MK secretary-general Sihle Ngubane said the party was disappointed with the ruling but that it would not affect its campaign.
‘He is still the leader of the party [the judgment] has no bearing on our campaign at all,” he said.
Mr Zuma’s face would remain on the ballot paper for the May 29 election, Mr Ngubane added.
South Africans vote for political parties, with the candidates at the top of their list receiving parliamentary seats depending on the number of votes the party receives.
Some MK members sang and danced outside the court, while those inside the court – some dressed in traditional Zulu regalia – sat in silence as the verdict was handed down.
Mr Zuma has not yet responded to the ruling.
ANC leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told a local radio station that he “noticed” the statement.
“The court has ruled, and as I have often said, that is the highest court in the land and we have given the judiciary the right to settle disputes between us in terms of our Constitution,” he said in an interview with 702 .
The rise of MK has raised the prospect that the ANC could lose its parliamentary majority for the first time since the end of apartheid thirty years ago.
uMkhonto we Sizwe is the original name of the armed wing of the ANC that fought against apartheid.
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