Hundreds of MK Party supporters pelted the convoy of expelled founder of MK Party Jabulani Khumalo with stones and various items outside the Electoral Commission Court in Johannesburg on Monday
The irate supporters also hurled insults at Khumalo as he left the court with his entourage, accusing him of being a dog and sell-out.
Khumalo was in court to seek reinstatement as the party’s leader, this as he is the party’s founder and the person who actually registered it with the IEC.
Khumalo wants the IEC’s decision to register Jacob Zuma as the party’s leader to be declared unlawful, invalid and be set aside.
In the weeks preceding the 29 May elections, Khumalo had frantically tried to get the IEC to rescind its decision to register Zuma as the party’s leader but his attempts were rebuffed by the electoral body on the basis that it ( the IEC) doesn’t involve itself in the internal affairs of political parties.
On Monday Zuma’s legal team insisted in court that there were no valid grounds to hear the Khumalo matter in the Electoral Court and that the matter has no urgency whatsiever and should therefore be dismissed. Zuma’s legal team argued that according to papers filed in court by Khumalo, if the matter is heard after elections then it would be a futile exercise and that based on the self-same version by Khumalo, the matter must be dismissed as elections have come and gone and there is no longer urgency in the matter.
Khumalo asserts that a letter emailed to the IEC wherein he ceded his leadership position to Zuma was in fact forged by Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sombudla.
He says after receiving the “forged” letter, the IEC failed to contact him to verify the contents of the letter as per procedure.
Judgement in the matter was reserved until further notice.
“Which planet is Jabulani Khumalo living in? ” asked MK spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhela when he spoke to the media on Monday.
“Khumalo is clutching at straws, he is an attention-seeker and wants to be Premier of KwaZulu Natal,” said Ndhela.
“There are eight witnesses who saw him sign the letter that was subsequently emailed to the IEC by Duduzile Zuma-Sombudla.
Meanwhile, MK has reiterated its call for a re-election, threatening that it would boycott the first Parliamentary sitting wherein the Speaker of Parliament and President of the country will be elected.
“It is very disappointing that the IEC has ignored our demand for a re-election,” said Ndhela.
“We will boycott the first sitting of Parliament and no business shall be conducted on the day because Parliament won’t form a quorum to take any decisions,” insisted Ndhela.
“There are ballot boxes with ballot papers which were found burnt in Mpumalanga and the IEC is dealing with this matter nonchalantly,” he fumed.
“MK Party has raised more than ten objections with the IEC and we have evidence in this regard,” he said.
“What’s the rush in announcing the election results?” asked Ndhela.
He revealed that MK has voice recordings of IT officials who have been hired by IEC conspiring to rig the elections.
Ndhela claims that the said recordings were made at the time the IEC systems were down and not working and that they include conspiracy by IT officials to ballot MK Party votes to another party.
The IEC has indicated that it had to announce the results of the elections as soon as possible as it didn’t want to keep the country in suspense, and that the objections raised by several parties are immaterial and won’t have an impact on the overall outcome of the election results.
But Ndhela opines that these reasons are frivolous, insisting that there was foreign interference in the elections by a government of a certain country, whose overall strategy is to first install DA leader Johaan Steenhuisen as Deputy President to President Cyril Ramaphosa, then topple Ramaphosa later on and make Steenhuisen the country’s president.
Meanwhile, Jacob Zuma has revealed that he is actually the original founder of MK Party and that Jabulani Khumalo was merely a “front” to hide Zuma’s involvement in the formation of the party.
And it has also emerged that Duduzile Zuma-Sombudla intends laying a charge of defamation of character against the embattled Jabulani Khumalo regarding claims by Khumalo that Zuma-Sombudla forged the resignation letter that was submitted to the IEC.