The presidential pardon sought by jailed Abathembu King Buyelakhaya Dalindyebo is unlikely to receive the backing of his old party, the DA.
DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip said the king's DA membership was terminated immediately after he lost his appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeals in 2015 and was jailed for 12 years.
Last week the presidency confirmed that justice minister Michael Masutha had recommended that President Cyril Ramaphosa pardon the king.
Eastern Cape monarchs threatened to tell their subjects to boycott the ANC at the polls if the king was not released within days.
On Monday Trollip said : “When King Dalindyebo signed up as a DA member [in 2013], I made it quite clear to him that if his appeal was turned down and his sentence was upheld that his membership would termininate. He is no longer a member of the DA."
Trollip said: “I believe that any parole or pardon for any body should go through the full and formal processes and not be based on political expedience."
Dalindyebo is in jail in East London Maximum Prison for arson, kidnapping, assault and defeating the ends of justice. He was found guilty by the Eastern Cape High court in 2009 and finally went to prison in December 2015...