A South African court Monday ruled that the government’s recognition of the King of the Zulu nation last year was unlawful, potentially setting off a new succession battle.<\/p>\n
The Pretoria high court ordered President Cyril Ramaphosa to set up an inquiry to probe whether the tumultuous accession of King Misuzulu Zulu was done in line with customary laws.<\/p>\n
Following the death of his father, Misuzulu Zulu, 49, was named in 2021 as monarch for the more than 10 million Zulu people living in South Africa.<\/p>\n
His traditional coronation had to wait 15 months until August 2022, following bitter feuding over the royal succession.<\/p>\n
Misuzulu Zulu took over from Goodwill Zwelithini, who died in March 2021 after a reign of more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
Misuzulu Zulu’s older brother, Prince Simakade, sought the ruling, which said the presidential recognition of the Zulu king “was unlawful and invalid and the recognition decision is hereby set aside.”<\/p>\n
At a mega party in October 2022, Ramaphosa gave Misuzulu Zulu a giant framed certificate officially recognising him as ruler of the country’s richest and most influential traditional monarchy.<\/p>\n
King Zwelithini left six wives and at least 28 children.<\/p>\n
Misuzulu Zulu is the first son of Zwelithini’s third wife, whom he designated as regent in his will.<\/p>\n
But the queen died suddenly a month after her husband, leaving a will naming Misuzulu Zulu as king.<\/p>\n
Zwelithini’s first wife claimed to be the only legitimate spouse but she failed to get a court order stopping the coronation of the man whose name means “to strengthen the Zulu people”.<\/p>\n
Before Ramaphosa’s state ceremony, Zwelithini’s eldest son, who was born out of wedlock, filed an emergency lawsuit claiming he was the rightful heir.<\/p>\n
Brothers of Zwelithini also claimed the throne for another contender.<\/p>\n
South Africa’s constitution recognises traditional rulers and chiefs and they wield significant moral authority.<\/p>\n
In July, rumours circulated that Misuzulu Zulu had been poisoned after the sudden death of a close adviser who died after ingesting a toxic substance. The king denied the claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A South African court Monday ruled that the government’s recognition of the King of the Zulu nation last year was unlawful, potentially setting off a new succession battle. The Pretoria high court ordered President Cyril Ramaphosa to set up an inquiry to probe whether the tumultuous accession of King Misuzulu Zulu was done in line […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AFP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,30],"tags":[151,1831,1830],"class_list":["post-10161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-goodwill-zwelithini","tag-king-of-the-zulu","tag-misuzulu-zulu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}