MK's Zuma adamant that comment from IEC's Love on election eligibility directed at him
MK Party leader Jacob Zuma is adamant that IEC Commissioner Janet Love's comments about eligibility for the elections were directed at his candidacy.
FILE: Former President Jacob Zuma at the Shekainah Healing Ministries Prophetic Pillowcase service in Phillipi, near Cape Town, on March 10, 2024. Picture: GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP
JOHANNESBURG - MK Party leader Jacob Zuma is adamant that IEC Commissioner Janet Love's comments about eligibility for the elections were directed at his candidacy.
Zuma and his new party believe Love's comments at a media briefing in January were biased, claiming she unfairly disqualified the former president from running for public office because of his 15-month jail sentence for contempt.
Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya called for submissions on Love's comments earlier this week.
This after the IEC challenged the Electoral Court's decision to overturn Zuma's disqualification.
In the comments in question, which came in response to a question from the media about Zuma's eligibility, Love spoke to "anybody who has been given a sentence that was not the subject of any deferral" being excluded and "the laws of the country" standing as "an impediment for that candidacy".
The IEC said that the comments were not about the former president "per se" but rather about the law.
Zuma and MK disagree, though.
They say the reference to "that candidacy", in particular, was "clearly unambiguously" directed at Zuma's candidacy.
Love's expressed legal position, they argued, "was that Zuma was disqualified to stand for elections" and they maintain that she "and/or by extension the IEC" "prematurely prejudged the issue" and "could not have arrived at a fair and different outcome".