[imagesource:archbishopbszondo/facebook]

“You are the company you keep” is perhaps the best way to describe the bizarre candidate list of the newest gang on the South African political landscape.

Amidst threatening to run to the IEC over its leaked candidate list, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) has now signed on televangelist Bishop Bafana Zondo as their candidate for Gauteng.

That’s if he doesn’t go to jail first.

Campaigning is going to be difficult whilst fighting off rape and sexual abuse charges for the disgraced preacher, but hey, Zuma got elected President after navigating his own rape trail, so at least the party is not in foreign waters, even if they seem to drag the swamp for candidates.

What is guaranteed to be a controversial move, the rape-accused preacher made the cut after spending some time with Zuma at his church, during which the congregants praised Jesus and Zuma with a vigorous rendition of Umshini Wami. 

Zondo, a Rivers of Living Waters Ministries bishop, is currently on trial in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria for allegedly raping seven women between 1980 and 2016, most of whom were his church followers.

According to the charge sheet, the first count of rape dates back to 1980, when Zondo allegedly raped a girl in Sebokeng, Gauteng. It is alleged that he sexually assaulted the minor on numerous occasions in the same year.

In 2008, he allegedly raped a woman at a hotel in Johannesburg. Between 2013 and 2015, he allegedly raped two other women in Evaton, and it’s reported that one of the women was raped on two separate occasions. In December 2015, Zondo allegedly raped another woman in or near his church in Evaton.

Zondo is also accused of raping his sixth victim in 2016 and of allegedly committing a seventh rape two years later. The bishop pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Despite the above, Zondo made it to number 17 on the party’s candidate list.

In case this madness makes you dizzy, here’s a recap: A tarnished preacher who is now on trial for numerous sex crimes was selected as a party’s candidate to lead Gauteng because the party’s leader, who is also a rape trial veteran, was touched by the rape-accused preacher’s faithful followers singing a song about a machine gun in church.

Did we get that right?

[source:news24]