South Africa electoral body bars ex-president Zuma from May election
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00:00 For a closer look at what Zuma's disqualification means, I'm joined now by Anne Wenceslaw. Anne,
00:06 so is this reason to celebrate for the ANC? Is it likely to lessen those fears
00:13 that it might not win more than 50% of the vote for the first time?
00:17 Probably not, because Jacob Zuma will not be allowed to appear on the ballot,
00:25 because remember he was put forward as the number one on the Uncontroversialist Party's
00:30 candidate list. So he is not allowed to appear on the ballot. You can't vote for him because,
00:37 as you mentioned in your introduction, he's got a prison sentence, you know, and according to the
00:44 South African constitution, if you have received a prison sentence of more than 12 months,
00:49 you are not eligible to run. So on that grounds already, he is disqualified. And in fact,
00:56 the Electoral Commission had said this to the party in January when they had given in their list.
01:03 And they said, look, do you still want to go ahead? Because, you know, you can't. And they
01:07 today confirmed that they have received objections to this. But what does it mean for the party?
01:14 Probably it's not going to hurt them terribly much, because while he can't be nominated,
01:19 he can still be part of the party. Well, he can be nominated, he just can't get on the ballot.
01:26 But he's still part of the party. So he'll probably be very visible. He'll probably be
01:31 very vocal. He's all about pushing the buttons of the ANC. And he does very well. And the concern
01:39 is also that he has such a strong, deep following in KZN that political pundits were saying that,
01:48 you know, 25 percent of the KZN vote could now go to the MK party because of Zuma's presence there.
01:57 So I don't think it's going to bother them that much. And I mean, on their list in any case,
02:05 Dudu Zile, I believe, is at number 18. So there is still a Zuma on the list. And
02:11 further confirming that, you know, Zuma is entrenched, if only for this particular wave,
02:20 with the MK party. Then there's also the fact that their name is problematic to the ANC,
02:28 because the Unkonto Vesiswe party, that is the name of Unkonto Vesiswe, which is the ANC's
02:35 military faction, now of course defunct, but very active during apartheid and so on, started in '61,
02:44 if memory serves. So that name has deep roots, social, cultural, emotional, psychological,
02:53 within the ANC. And they are trying to say, look, it's ours. We want to copyright it. It's ours,
02:59 and we don't want anyone to use it. And they've in fact gone to court to try and say, look,
03:05 ban these guys from using this name because it's our name. They also tried to get the MK party
03:11 deregistered, and they failed to date. So that remains to be seen. But the MK party itself is
03:21 not down and out. Jacob Zuma is not to be discounted. And yes, can the ANC breathe a
03:30 sigh of relief? I don't really think so. Thanks very much, Anne Wenzel there for us in Caketown.