Former president Jacob Zuma believes the case involving the 10 people who represented his uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) in Parliament should be thrown out of court because none of them have proved their party membership.
The MKP was taken to court after 10 of its former members had their party membership terminated and were removed as MPs.
They want the court to stop the National Assembly from filling their positions, and ask for the termination of their membership to the party and the National Assembly be reviewed and set aside.
In his replying affidavit, Zuma said none of the group of expelled MPs alleged that they were members of the MKP.
“Even if they did, no evidence has been furnished to the court to prove such membership, which is the obvious gateway to their application,” he said.
Zuma also said the former member’s claim to their membership of both MKP and the National Assembly was disputed.
“If such membership of the MK Party ever existed, which is denied, it has since been lawfully terminated.
In at least two cases, they were terminated more than once. Any membership of the National Assembly has also expired,” he said.
“There is certainly no legal basis for the applicants either to assert their membership of MK Party or the National Assembly and/or to bring the present application with any prospects of success on both parts A and/or B thereof,” Zuma added.
National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza has indicated to the court that she will abide by its decision. The matter is expected to be heard on Tuesday.
In his court papers, Zuma told the court about how the MKP was established last year after he requested certain third party individuals to attend its registration with the Independent Electoral Commission.
He said he established and appointed an interim structure called Interim Leadership Core to run the MPK as well as to oversee election campaigns and related activities until there was “first democratic conference to elect permanent leadership”.
“One of the relevant decisions and practices of the Interim Leadership Core was to place on me as president the powers to deploy all members of the MK Party at my sole discretion, until the holding of the elective conference at which democratically elected structures would be put in place.”
Due to the tight deadline of submission of candidate lists to the IEC, Zuma said he had delegated the task to then secretary general Thanduxolo Dyolo.
“This turned out to have been a mistake in that, unbeknown to me, all sorts of names were improperly and irregularly included in the list without proper consultation and vetting simply to achieve compliance with the unreasonably short IEC deadline.”
The party had candidate lists containing about 8 000 names and R75 000 was paid to the IEC as a deposit to contest the elections.
“More than 90% of these individuals were not known to me. I was falsely assured of their bona fides and the authenticity of their status. As a consequence of mishandling the above, which involved allegations of fraud, I removed Dyolo and replaced him with advocate Mashudu Tshivhase.”
Zuma said a criminal complaint of fraud in relation to the irregular compilation of the candidate lists was lodged at the Sandton police station and the police investigation was still under way.
“Among the many people affected by this process of cleansing the list of improperly included individuals either because of non-membership, irregular inclusion, lack of requisite skills and/ or replacement with more suitable members of (the) MK Party were the applicants on the present application.
“I determined that the applicants and others must lose their membership of the MK Party and consequently their membership of the National Assembly.”
Cape Times