The High Court has ruled against KwaZulu-Natal MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi, for failing in her constitutional duty to facilitate several by-elections in the province.
Sithole-Moloi had made an urgent application to the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg, seeking the by-elections in six municipalities to be postponed to a date after the provincial and national elections.
“I have accordingly approached this court to authorise me to declare and call the by-elections on 19 June 2024. I require authorisation from the court because the date is outside of the 90 days prescribed in Section 25 (3) of the Structures Act,” read Sithole-Moloi legal papers.
Upcoming general elections cited
The MEC had conceded that it would be practically impossible to organise the by-elections while also running political party campaigns for the upcoming general elections. South Africa is scheduled to hold the national elections on May 29. The country will to vote for a new National Assembly and the provincial legislature in the country’s nine provinces.
But on Thursday, the court ordered that Sithole-Moloi should pay the litigation costs and that of the IFP-led Mthonjaneni local municipality. The council was the only one among the five who had opposed the MEC’s decision.
Nongoma, Umvoti and Uphongolo were the voting districts impacted by the decision. This apart from Mthonjaneni covering mainly the rural town of Melmoth, northern KZN.
Big loss in previous strongholds
Sithole-Moloi’s party, the ANC, has seen an electoral bloodbath in key by-elections. In some instances it lost wards which were previously the governing party’s strongholds. Wards such as in Newcastle, where the IFP made a clean sweep.
In the aftermath of the court decision, the DA in KZN has called for Sithole-Moloi’s head.
“In the event that an MEC acts unconstitutionally, it is against his or her oath of office. The court has upheld that MEC Sithole-Moloi did so. This is a case for immediate dismissal,” explained Martin Meyer, DA spokesman for Cogta.
