South Africa’s ruling ANC loses another court battle against ex-President Zuma’s MK party

By Hassan Isilow

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party Monday lost a court bid to stop the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party from using the name and logo of its former armed wing.

The ANC dragged the MK Party led by former President Jacob Zuma, to court seeking to stop it from using the name and logo of uMkhonto weSizwe, saying it is a breach of the trademark law.

The ANC which has ruled South Africa for three decades, disbanded uMkhonto weSizwe, its military wing of the armed struggle a few years ago.

Dismissing the ANC's court application, Durban High Court Judge Nicolette Beket ruled the logo and name could still be used by the uMkhonto weSizwe party in the May 29 elections and ordered the ANC to instead pay the legal costs during the short court appearance.

ANC’s Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula told a news conference Monday the party will appeal the court decision.

Monday’s ruling at the Durban high court came weeks after the electoral court in Johannesburg quashed a court bid by the ANC seeking to deregister the MK party, barring it from running in the May 29 polls.

The judge said the ANC should have challenged the MK party’s registration last year but brought the matter beyond the stipulated period.

The MK party formed last year is being fronted by Zuma and it has now emerged as a powerful rival of the ANC.

Zuma, 81, led the ANC and the country for nearly a decade but announced last December he would not vote or campaign for the party in next month’s elections.

In January, the ANC suspended Zuma, a party member for 60 years, in another sign of the growing rift between him and current President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The Independent Electoral body had also recently announced that Zuma would not be allowed to run for elections because he had been jailed for 15 months for contempt of court after he failed to appear before a commission investigating corruption during his tenure in office.

However, the electoral court overturned the electoral body's decision, ruling that Zuma can run in the elections expected to be the most hotly contested since the first democratic elections were held in 1994.

Opinion polls are suggesting that the MK party is in a position where it could cut by half ANC’s support in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’s most populous province where Zuma hails from.

The ANC, which liberated South Africans from white minority rule and racial segregation, has secured more than 60% in all elections since 1994, barring 2019, when its parliamentary share dipped to 57.5%.