The Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) this week published the list of parties and candidates who will be vying for positions of power in the general elections to be held on May 29.
So far 14 662 candidates have been nominated to contest 887 seats available in the National Assembly and the nine legislatures.
In the run-up to voting day, the Sunday Tribune will feature some of the notable candidates. Here are a few of them.
Makhosi Busisiwe Khoza
Khoza has in the past couple of years been hopping from one party to another.
She is listed at number six on the list of Abantu Batho Congress (ABC), whose leader is a wealthy businessman Philani Mavundla from Greytown, who was the deputy mayor of eThekwini Municipality.
Khoza, a former public service and administration portfolio committee chairperson, left the ANC unceremoniously in 2017 after she was charged internally for supporting a motion of no confidence against then-president Jacob Zuma.
She had previously joined Action SA and contested to be the eThekwini mayor without success. She had previously considered joining Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party and a few more in her attempt to find a political home.
Ahmed Munzoor Shaik Emam
Shaik Emam, who hails from Chatsworth in Durban, recently abandoned the National Freedom Party (NFP), of which he was a lone MP since 2014.
He has teamed up with Royith Baloo Bhoola in the Allied Movement for Change (AM4C). Bhoola was an MP for the Minority Front (MF) between 2004 and 2014.
George Hlaudi Motsoeneng
Motsoeneng, the former SABC chief operating officer, tops the list of the African Content Movement (ACM). It is believed that he left the public broadcaster in financial distress, allegedly due to his transformation decisions, including implementing a policy that 90% of music and 80% of movies broadcast by SABC radio and TV stations should have been locally produced.
Ever since he was fired, he has criss-crossed the country, spreading news that he was going to be state president and transform the country.
On January 2023, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed his application to appeal a Johannesburg High Court ruling against the claim that the SABC should pay him R11.5 million for securing a deal with MultiChoice.
Zwelini Lawrence Mkhize
The former KwaZulu-Natal premier and health minister has faced hard times, which led to him stepping aside from the Cabinet but remaining an ANC MP after being linked to the Digital Vibes scandal. He is number two on the KZN provincial to national list. Former president Jacob Zuma supporters sided with Mkhize’s attempt to unseat President Cyril Ramaphosa at the ANC’s December 2022 elective conference. But he did not support Zuma’s move to the uMkhonto weSizwe Party.
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla
Zuma-Sambudla is hoping to be an MP under the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), which her father Jacob Zuma is campaigning for.
She has been seen at her father’s side during his recent court appearances.
Early this year, she read a statement where Zuma announced siding with the MKP against the ANC.
Zackie Achmat
Regarded as the most formidable HIV/Aids campaigner, Achmat is among a few independent candidates contesting the elections.
He co-founded the Treatment Action Campaign, a lobby group against the killer disease, in 1998.
According to his website, he has received endorsements from figures such as former Black Sash president Mary Burton, the ANC’s elderly leader Mavuso Msimang and former health and public enterprises minister Barbara Hogan.
Anele Mda
Mda could be best remembered for when she and ANC veterans such as Patrick Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Mluleki George dumped the ruling party in disgust to form the Congress of the People (Cope) in 2008. This was in anger at the recall of Thabo Mbeki as the country’s president shortly before the end of his term of office.
Mda has now emerged from the political wilderness to contest the national elections as an independent candidate.
Sunday Tribune