The Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party has written to the National Assembly (NA) secretary to remove Jabulani Khumalo from the party’s candidates list.
Party’s spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela told “The Star on Thursday that the party would not take expelled members to Parliament.
“Remember this is an old list, but we have written to the Parliament secretary to remove him officially from our list. We can’t have expelled members representing our party in Parliament,” Ndhlela said.
He was clarifying the issue of Khumalo's name appearing in the list of candidates who are going to be sworn in to Parliament on Thursday.
Khumalo topped the list of Members of Parliament, followed by Jacob Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla at number 16, Ndhlela at number 22 and Des van Rooyen, among others.
Khumalo still claims to be one of the leaders of the party, who was currently in court to seek the court order to remove Zuma as a party leader.
Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has submitted the list of future MPs to the secretary of Parliament.
All 58 MK Party candidates are expected to boycott Parliament as the party was fighting for the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) to recount its votes.
This as the party leader threatened to take the IEC to court, after he accused it of various election irregularities, including vote rigging.
Addressing party supporters outside the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, Zuma said IEC had refused to recount the votes despite the party having “evidence of vote rigging”.
“What happened is that IEC officials took MK’s votes and gave them to other political parties. We have concrete evidence to back this. Should they continue ignoring us, we could refuse to take up our seats in Parliament,” he added.
The house rules dictate that there has to be 400 or 350 candidates to constitute Parliament in order to elect the Speaker of the House and other senior office bearers.
If the MK Party chose to boycott the first sitting, the election of both the president and the Speaker would not happen.
Out of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature’s 80 seats, the MK Party has 37, meaning the Provincial Legislature’s first sitting would be at risk of collapsing should MK Party MPLs boycott the session.
The Star