Vatsonga reveals strategy to reclaim kingship with president’s assistance
Vatsonga-Machangani has now outlined its strategy to force president Jacob Zuma to give their king, Mpisane Eric Nxumalo, a certificate of recognition.
Orlando Chauke
LIMPOPO – After spending a few months regrouping, the Vatsonga-Machangani tribe led by Hlayiseka Robert Khosa, has now outlined its strategy to force president Jacob Zuma to give their king, Mpisane Eric Nxumalo, a certificate of recognition, which he has been fighting for since 2006 when he first applied for kingship.
According to July Sithole, one of the researchers attached to the tribe, they plan to use the Constitutional Court ruling of last year, which dismissed an appeal against a judgement of the North Gauteng high court that the Shangaan’s Gaza kingdom did not exist anymore and that Nxumalo had no right to the Vatsonga-Machangani’s kingship.
In its ruling, the Constitutional Court had based its judgement of the case on the Commission on Traditional Disputes and Claims’ report, which dismissed Nxumalo’s claim mainly on the basis that the kingdom of Gaza had disintegrated between 1894 and 1897, before September 1922, the date from which the commission was mandated to investigate South African kingships.
The constitutional court ruled in Nxumalo’s favour when it upheld his appeal against the order of the high court concerning the president’s decision to overlook the Shangaan’s kingdom, after the commission had presented its final findings.
The president had apparently used the amended Act, which gave him powers to decide whether a tribe deserved a kingdom or not, instead of using the previous act that was in use when Nxumalo’s claim was lodged in 2006.
The verdict threw a life jacket to the Shangaan’s fight for kingship by not completely dismissing the existence of their kingdom.
“In simple terms this means that the president has been forced to swallow his own words on what he had said about there being no Shangaan king or kingdom,” Sithole explained, adding that the decision of the court could not be appealed since it was the highest court in the country.
“We’re using this order in relation to the current traditional leadership law that is in operation to force the president to grant our king a certificate of recognition,” he said.
