The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have called on African countries to reject the British monarchy and not to participate in the Commonwealth.
The party said in a statement on Friday that it would not form part of the Parliamentary delegation attending the 62nd Commonwealth Conference in December.
"In 2002, this very body, the Commonwealth, suspended the participation of Zimbabwe because the Zimbabweans took back their land from the white colonialists. This was a clear indication that the Commonwealth is a guard of white colonial and racist interests. The EFF, therefore, calls on the African continent and all other former British colonies to reject the British monarchy by refusing to be convened by it in the Commonwealth," spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said.
The Commonwealth — formerly the Empire Parliamentary Association — is a body consisting of 52 countries, many of them former British colonies. Parliamentarians from member states meet regularly to discuss policy and governance.
Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth in 2003, after the organisation upheld an indefinite suspension against it. The Gambia withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2013.
The party said that instead of taking full responsibility for its crimes of genocide, colonisation and anti-black racism, the British monarchy continues to express influence over its former colonies through the Commonwealth.
Ndlozi said the British monarchy must "fall and be decimated into the same dustbin of history where all institutions and states that perpetuated crimes against humanity belong".
"This is the same dustbin of history that contains regimes like those of Hitler, Idi Amin, Mabuto Sese Seko, Mussolini, the French monarchy, King Leopold, and apartheid — amongst all these, the British monarchy takes the crown and thus it must fall, together with its Commonwealth," he added.
Ndlozi said the Commonwealth is built on the assumption that all former British colonies must continue to associate together with their former coloniser post-independence due to shared history and culture.
The British monarchy should be ashamed of itself, or even of still existing [given] the crimes against humanity it has caused as an institutionMbuyiseni Ndlozi
"We reject this association and we reject the British monarchy and the history it represents," Ndlozi said. "The British monarchy must not enjoy the world's recognition [given] the pain it has cause across the world, through the brutal crime of colonisation. The British monarchy should be ashamed of itself, or even of still existing [given] the crimes against humanity it has caused as an institution."