by TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG – THE upheaval rocking the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party of former South African president, Jacob Zuma, is a case of chickens coming home to roost.
The party ought to be utilising its status as the official opposition in the National Assembly to fight prevailing challenges in the country but instead is torn by factionalism, tribalism, pitting the president, Zuma, and the axed secretary general (SG), Floyd Shivambu.
Shivambu (42) defected from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and joined MK in August 2024 after the May general elections.
He would later be appointed SG, the seventh official to occupy the position, which now seems poisoned chalice, since the party’s formation was announced in December 2023.
This depicts a picture of a party that is deeply disorganised. Shivambu thought himself to be a rolling stone.
In a relatively short political career, he has been at the African National Congress (ANC), where he was sacked when Zuma (83) was president of party and country, the EFF, then MK, and now it seems he will form a party.
It would appear Shivambu’s position had become untenable after his Easter visit to Malawi where he met controversial church leader, Shepherd Bushiri, a fugitive from the law in South Africa.
However, a storm was already brewing featuring him and Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who launched a series of outbursts against the SG.
She would later be ordered to apologise to Shivambu but that did not end the enmity.
Zuma-Sambudla is seen as the de facto head of MK, but Zuma this week appeared to show he was his own man, launching a tirade against Shivambu and previous MK SGs.
After his dismissal from the influential position, Shivambu was relegated to the position of Member of Parliament (MP) but he has not been sworn in, fueling the differences.
“We’ve had seven secretary-generals because we are not here to play games. We do not care how great they are, how loved they are. We don’t care,” Zuma said at an event to mark the annual Youth Day.
It is commemorated on June 16.
On Thursday, Shivambu organised a press conference that had indications of hitting back against Zuma.
The invitation to the media did not have the MK letterhead, signaling it was his own initiative not the party’s.
He recited how there had been allegations he wanted to overthrow Zuma. This is the biggest crisis the party has faced and mostly, these calamities are self-inflicted.
Shivambu maintained that despite exploring the formation of a new party, he remained a member of the MK.
“I have not resigned from uMkhonto weSizwe and I will never resign from uMkhonto weSizwe. I’m a member,” he said at a press conference north of Johannesburg.
He was clad in some regalia of the MK, the green and black.
“The MK constitution says members are not allowed to participate in activities and programmes of political parties whose aims and objectives are opposed to the objectives of uMkhonto weSizwe,” he said.
He dismissed suggestions he would rejoin the ANC or EFF.
By insisting he remains a member of the MK, yet working on forming a new party, he reminds of Zuma, who while being the leader of MK, insisted he remained a member of the ANC.
The ANC eventually fired Zuma from the party.
If threats of a crackdown by Zuma in his recent outbursts against Shivambu and previous MK SGs are anything to go by, Shivambu will be axed from the MK.
The latest developments are a fresh twist in the splits tearing parties that split from the ANC.
Thus, months after its split from the ANC, MK faces its own split.
Such upheaval befell the Congress of the People (COPE), which was formed by ANC officials disgruntled by the axing of Thabo Mbeki as South Africa’s president, after the then Zuma faction of the ANC turned against him.
Other groups formed after fallout within the ANC include EFF, led by Shivambu’s erstwhile comrade, Julius Malema, and Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement (UDM).
UDM is now part of the coalition government formed last year after the ANC lost its majority.
– CAJ News
