Jacob Zuma banned from running in South Africa elections: All you need to know

Here is all you need to know about Jacob Zuma, and South Africa’s upcoming elections.

Why is the ban a big deal?

The African National Congress (ANC) came to power in 1994, on the back of its struggle against apartheid. Much like the Indian National Congress in the 1950-60s, it has had a strong stranglehold over South African politics since then. “This isn’t a pattern peculiar to South Africa. Liberation movements that became governing parties… enjoyed wide popularity in the earlier years of independence,” Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, Professor of Public Affairs at Pretoria’s Tshwane University of Technology wrote for The Conversation.

While ANC’s popularity has waned in recent years, it has still managed to maintain an over 50 per cent voteshare every national election. Jacob Zuma, and his new uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, however, are poised to change that.

The latest polling by Markdata in March, suggests the ANC has 41 percent of the national vote, and the MK, 11 percent, Al Jazeera reported. In Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC is weaker still. Polling by the Social Research Foundation released in February, suggests that when voters were asked to choose between ANC and MK, more than 60 per cent chose the latter.

How the disqualification will change things is yet to be seen. MK spokesman Nhlamulo Ndhlela told AFP that the party was “looking at the merit of that objection but we will of course appeal it”. Regardless of how the appeal pans out, Zuma is expected to continue campaigning against the ANC. Notably, the ANC had previously (unsuccessfully) petitioned South Africa’s Electoral Commission to ban the MK from contesting the election.

Who is Jacob Zuma?

Zuma, 81, served as modern South Africa’s fourth president, from 2009 to 2018. In his youth, as a member of the ANC, he fought to end the apartheid, and was even imprisoned in Robben Island with other anti-apartheid leaders, such as Nelson Mandela.

He served as deputy president of South Africa from 1999 to 2005, under Thabo Mbeki, Mandela’s successor to the presidency. However, he was dismissed after receiving dubious payments in connection to a high-profile arms deal. He was also acquitted on rape charges in a very public trial in 2006.

Nonetheless, Zuma, in 2007 managed to win over the ANC’s left-wing coalition and was elected president in 2009. Multiple criminal charges against him were formally withdrawn the very same week. While Zuma did win some acclaim for his populist policies which especially appealed to South Africa’s poorest, his two-term presidency was marred by allegations of corruption and wrongdoing.

By 2016, allegations emerged that Zuma had allowed the Gupta family to acquire immense influence over his administration. The Gupta family was a wealthy Indian-origin business family, with interests ranging from IT and engineering, to mining, real estate, and leisure. Having cultivated a relationship with Zuma since 2003, the Guptas held sway at all levels of South African government and public life under Zuma, in what was described by many observers as a “state capture”.

Under mounting pressure, and a looming no confidence vote (the fifth that he would face) Zuma resigned in 2017. His successor, current President Cyril Ramaphosa, effectively sidelined him from the ANC. In 2021, Zuma was arrested and sentenced to 15 months in prison for refusing to appear in court during a corruption inquiry. His arrest sparked riots which ended up killing around 300 people. Zuma was eventually released after a couple of months on medical parole.

In December 2023, while still technically an ANC member, he founded the MK party, named after ANC’s former military wing. Zuma still sees himself as the true heir to the anti-apartheid movement’s revolutionary roots, a BBC report stated. The ANC has since suspended Zuma.