A win for the political rights of ordinary people over narrow party interests

Nkosikhulule Nyembezi

It was only a little over five hours of legal argument last week and just 40 minutes of delivering a judgment, but the uMkhonto WeSizwe (MK) Party registration case brought by the ANC against the Electoral Commission at the Electoral Court had almost a decade of history bearing down on it.

The specifics dealt with whether the Jacob Zuma-led MK Party should be deregistered and barred from contesting the upcoming elections.

Still, the case was more comprehensive at its heart: closing the gap between the fast-waning ANC’s dominance of South Africa’s political landscape and how the dominant political forces describe it.

For weeks now, the ANC’s anger and disapproval of the formation of the MK Party under Zuma’s guidance has spilt out on to the streets across several municipalities. Yet, the ANC alliance leaders have resolutely misplaced, entertained, permitted, or lionised this anger.

Public support for the MK Party is estimated to have increased by more than 70% in some municipalities since its formation last December.

However, the political tolerance levels of the ANC or its alliance partners do not reflect this emerging reality.

In their circles, acknowledgement of the constitutional rights of the MK Party founders and members to form and register a political party with a name and symbols of their choice has yet to translate into meaningful reality.

The ANC told the court that the MK Party’s registration was unlawful because it submitted fraudulent signatures in its initial application documents to be registered as a political party.

The ANC told the court that if the MK Party is allowed to contest the elections, it would threaten free and fair elections.

In a separate court action, in the KZN High Court (Durban) over the MK Party’s alleged copyright infringement, in an affidavit, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has asked the court to force MK Party to pay reasonable damages for its illegal use of a logo resembling the ANC’s former armed wing, uMkhonto weSizwe.

Even the ANC’s language of protest against the MK Party has sounded like a forensically analysed package to render it problematic or ignorant; ANC protesters have been accusing the MK Party of “appropriating” the Struggle history and heritage into “trendy electioneering tools”, even to the extent of invoking trademark and other commercial law arguments meant to protect financial interests and that seem to have nothing to do with politics.

All this reflects the opposite of what South Africans have been told for years: no single organisation can monopolise your Struggle for freedom given its history of a multi-sector character guided by a vanguard movement.

It has no mandate or accountability, evidence or morality to base it, but instead stands on prejudice, entitlement and (more recently) the ANC’s self-preservation.

In other words, the Ramaphosa-Zuma conflict is complicated and best left to the courts to suppress dissenting voices posed to mount a strong electoral challenge to the ruling party.

The MK Party’s submission to the Electoral Court challenged that portrayal in appearances and substance.

It matters to hear things that many of the political elite did not take seriously enough concerning the need for respect, protection, and protection of the right of all citizens to make political choices spelt out at a pitch that matches their graveness.

It matters that these things, investigated by media outlets, reported by human rights organisations and narrated by ordinary people on the ground that have no allegiance to party factions, are collected and listed in one address encapsulating Section 19 of the Constitution: the right to form or join a political party, the right to campaign for a party or a political cause, the right to vote in free and fair elections, and the right to stand for public office and if elected to occupy office.

It matters that these claims have links to the Constitution and electoral laws. And it matters that authorities speak of these claims in a formal setting, within a legal framework, uttered by lawyers and listened to by judges.

Even the sober ritual and choreography of the proceedings was a blessing in our largely chaotic factional politics.

The overall effect is an emphatic enfranchisement of political rights of ordinary people in a manner that also demonstrates that it is not only uMkhonto Wesizwe trademark ownership that is on trial but also a test of the ANC’s claim to have a monopoly on human rights custodianship.

In that sense, it matters significantly what the final ruling is on this MK Party registration case in the same way that we heard sound legal arguments in the first place.

You can agree or disagree whether the political hurdle for the ANC’s late submission of objections to the Electoral Commission has been convincing enough (or whether it even matters if the ANC and its allies will continue to undermine MK Party members’ political rights anyway).

Still, in making a submission that recognises the seriousness of events – and that the seriousness of those events may amount to a pushback on the ANC’s dominance – enough is presented to illustrate that the human rights response has won the day over narrow political interests.

You might be inclined to dismiss the whole thing as a performance. But what exactly is successful political storytelling without capturing imagination and stirring frustration?

There is an experience, woven into such political party’s areas of influence, memories and contemporary politics, of the emergence of splinter groups and post-election imbalances that render the MK Party a disruptive cause, one that aligns with resentments towards hegemonic incumbency interests that serve a few and expect the rest to fall in line.

The court case is emblematic of a broader confrontation that seems to ask, from within the very same constitutional institutions that established it, if our human rights infrastructure is real or just a theatre that convenes in the service of some political caste system.

The conflict has put such allies in the position of undermining their systems or ignoring them, leaching away credibility.

By creating such a focal point for that shift, the MK Party registration case brought by the ANC has illustrated that perhaps it is those who are obstructing attempts to end the severe distress of one-party dominance in our country who hold the fringe position.

* Nyembezi is a researcher, policy analyst and human rights activist

Cape Times