Former South African president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party has filed court papers seeking to stop Friday’s first sitting of the newly elected parliament whose main agenda will be the election of the country’s next president.
MK has said that its elected members of parliament will boycott Friday’s sitting of the National Assembly until the Constitutional Court rules on its challenge of the outcome of last month’s general elections.
The party, which ironically was the biggest winner in the May 29 poll after getting 58 parliamentary seats less than six months since its formation, has objected to what it calls irregularities in the handling of the elections by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
In its application, the party wants the Constitutional Court to set aside the IEC’s decision to declare the election free and fair and to order a rerun of the poll.
The governing African National Congress (ANC) party got only 40 percent of the vote, thereby losing its parliamentary majority and forcing it to seek a government of national unity involving other parties.
Friday’s first sitting of parliament is expected to witness the announcement of the make-up of the proposed coalition.
This is the first time the ANC has failed to form a government on its own since the advent of democracy in 1994.
JN/APA