Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK) Party leader Jacob Zuma came out with guns blazing in a speech delivered on his behalf by party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela at a public meeting in Johannesburg on Sunday afternoon.
It is not clear as to how the scathing speech was read by Ndhlela because Zuma was physically there at the meeting which was attended by both the media and the party’s supporters.
In the speech read for him, Zuma reminded the audience that he has seven reasons which compelled him to campaign and vote for the MK Party instead of what he called ” the ANC of Ramaphosa.”
He expressed satisfaction that millions of South Africans defied “ANC of Ramaphosa” and voted for MK Party and other “progressive parties.”
Zuma strongly says in the statement that he strongly believed that if it were not for the “vote-rigging” that took place under the watch of the IEC, the MK Party would have received the majority of votes in the recent May 29 general elections.
He described the alleged vote-rigging as day light robbery.
“The MK Party legal team will report on avenues to be followed regarding vote-rigging incidents,” he said in the aforementioned statement.
This past week the MK Party rushed to the Constitutional Court to complain about “vote-rigging,” but the case was thrown out as MK couldn’t furnish the august court with empirical evidence in this regard.
But Zuma still insists that ” the people” must know what happened to their votes.
“We have already waited for 400 years for our freedom, and we are almost there,” read the statement.
“We need to educate our people that there is no government of national unity in South Africa but that there is a white-led unholy alliance of the DA and the ANC of Ramaphosa,” read the statement.
The statement reiterated Zuma’s call for the abolition of the Roman Dutch Law in South Africa as it doesn’t serve African people.
Be that as it may, the MK Party will be taking up its seats in Parliament but warned that it will continue the battle for land in Parliament, in the streets and as well as in the courts of law.
Meanwhile, Zuma’s lawyer Dali Mpofu, who also represents MK Party in court cases, told the gathering that the MK Party has been involved in what he described as 11 unprecedented cases in a space of three months, revealing in the process that he doesn’t know of any other political party that has been to court so many times in such a short space of time.
Amid cheering and clapping of hands by MK Party supporters, Mpofu announced that on 19 March this year the ANC took MK to court in Bloemfontein with the aim of getting the party deregistered, but it failed.
“On 27 March the ANC took us to the Durban High Court to fight over the logo and trademark of MK, they failed,” said Mpofu.
He also highlighted the case brought by the IEC against MK regarding the eligibility of Zuma to run as a candidate in the general elections, which the MK legal team eventually won.
He also highlighted several more cases which were brought against MK Party by the party’s now-expelled founder Jabulani Khumalo.
Mpofu was at pains to point out that the MK legal team was successful in all cases that it was involved in except those that took place in the Constitutional Court.
He announced that judgement was imminent in the Electoral Court between MK Party and another expelled member of the party Bonginkosi Khanyile.
He said the MK Party legal team has been asked to further pursue cases which failed in the Constitutional Court internationally as well as at local level.
Matters which will be pursued further involve MK’s demand for the whole 29 May general elections to be set aside entirely and for a re-election to be held within 90 days.
The other matter is the removal of Zuma from the list of MK Party members who will be going to Parliament as the matter was not handled in accordance with international law, according to Mpofu.
He emphasised that the case which the MK Party lost recently recently in the Constitutional Court was not about failure to provide empirical evidence to the court but was about the premature declaration of results by the IEC.
The following attachment is a full statement of MK party.