MK Party: Is there a fall after the rise in sight?

IT IS a well-documented fact that Jacob Zuma's nine years as president caused immense damage to the economy and state institutions; that he was the king of state capture and institutionalised corruption; and that it was a major setback in the fight against inequality, unemployment, and poverty. Land reform nearly came to a complete halt during his administration.

Zuma himself was plagued by scandal from the start: The ongoing court case over the arms deal; a rape case; the misuse of state funds for the construction of Nkandla and his lies about it; his corrupt relationship with the Gupta brothers and his selling off of parts of the state for favours and gifts for his family and friends; his blatant disregard for the judiciary and the Zondo state capture commission. Zuma and his RET faction divided the ANC more than any other ANC leader in the party’s history.

And yet, 2.3 million voters cast their ballots for his new party on May 29. This was 14.6% of the vote, making it the third-largest party after the ANC and DA, 5 percentage points more popular than the established EFF. In KwaZulu-Natal, 1.6 million voters supported the MK Party in the provincial contest, more than double the votes the ANC received.

Four months later, it is even clearer than on election day that the party is built around the person of Zuma. He is the primary symbol, the cult figure at the heart of the party, personally making all important decisions and appointing and dismissing office bearers. He has no intention of holding a congress where leaders will be elected, because, he says, it would expose the party to manipulation, bribery, and infiltration.

This is where comparisons between Zuma and Donald Trump are relevant. By almost every measure, America was better off under pres. Joe Biden than under Trump, and the country’s international standing was better too. Trump (78) has since been repeatedly exposed as a pathological liar and narcissist, with various legal cases looming over him. Today, he boasts of his avowed accomplishments as president and says he will make America great again.

Half of American voters believe him. As things stand, Trump has a 50% chance of being re-elected.

It’s too simplistic to understand this purely as a cult movement, and the same is likely to be true for Zuma and MKP.

(There’s another resemblance between Trump and Zuma: Part of their motivation to regain power is to avoid prison.)

Shortly after the surprising election result, I compared Zuma to Jonas Savimbi, who also entirely dominated his party, Unita, in Angola. When Savimbi was shot dead in 2002, Unita rapidly declined.

But after reviewing the election results in Angola from 1992 to 2022, I must revise my comparison. In 1992, Savimbi garnered 40.2% of the vote in the presidential election, but his successor could only manage 18.6% in 2012. In the parliamentary election, Unita received 34% support in 1992, but only 10.4% in 2008 and 18.6% in 2012.

However, from around 2017, Unita began to grow again, and in 2022, Unita and its presidential candidate won 44% of the vote. It is now breathing down the ruling MPLA's neck more than ever before. It continues to enjoy overwhelming support among the Ovimbundu and Chokwe ethnic groups.

The lesson is that Unita had a reason to exist beyond the cult figure of Savimbi, and with good organisation and mobilisation, the party became stronger than ever.

The question now is whether MKP can survive the death or withdrawal of Zuma due to poor health. Is there an MK without JZ?

To answer this, we need to investigate who supports the party and why, and whether the party has the organisational potential to build and maintain structures.

Commentators are usually cautious not to emphasise ethnicity as a factor, but there is absolutely no doubt that Zulu ethnicity is central to the character of MKP. By far, most of the support for MK in the election came from KZN and other places where there is a strong concentration of Zulu speakers. Zuma's public speeches are almost exclusively in Zulu.

His daughter and MK MP, Duduzile, this week campaigned to rename Heritage Day Shaka Day, a move widely supported by MK members:

The Zulu-speaking population, between 11 and 14 million strong, forms the largest single ethnic group in South Africa with its total population of 60 million.

Throughout his political career, Zuma has presented himself as a Zulu leader, in exile and thereafter. The Inkatha Freedom Party, also strongly based on Zulu identity, lost much support after Zuma became president in 2007. If not for Zuma, ANC support in KZN would have dwindled long ago.

For decades, Zuma has portrayed himself as the victim of various conspiracies, perpetuating the sentiment that an attack on him is an attack on Zulu identity — a weak Zuma is a weak Zulu nation. He has always made an effort to retain the loyalty of traditional Zulu leaders and chiefs.

But ethnicity cannot be the only explanation. If ANC governments since 1994 had governed more effectively and there had been less corruption, mismanagement and poor governance, even Zulu speakers would not so easily have abandoned the ANC.

As with Trump, it passes many supporters by that Zuma's administration was worse for the poor and working class than the administrations of Thabo Mbeki and Cyril Ramaphosa. He is the victim of the “Ramaphosa-ANC" and they can identify with that. They easily swallow his accusation that Ramaphosa is aligned with white monopoly capital and un-ANC. They also like Zuma's social conservatism, sexism and homophobia. (He wants to send unmarried pregnant teenagers to Robben Island.)

Zuma's strategy since launching MKP in December, to paint the party as the real ANC rather than the Ramaphosa-ANC, has been very effective because most MKP voters who previously voted for the ANC did not feel they were betraying their old political identity. In fact, Zuma's rhetoric against “white oppression" and returning land to the black majority aligns with how they remember the old ANC.

I have little doubt that an initial motive for the party's founding was not poor service delivery or the neglect of black South Africans, but revenge because the patronage system from which they benefited was being threatened. The taps of tenderpreneurship, jobs for cronies, and state contracts were being turned off. Several of the beneficiaries in the business world who were affected by this financially supported MK.

Before May 29 few people truly believed that MKP would perform so well. Besides Zuma and his daughter, there were almost no well-known or experienced leaders or political operatives in the party, and the parliamentary list for the 58 seats was filled with unknown and inexperienced people.

When MKP unexpectedly received nearly 15% of the vote, a whole cadre of aggrieved, corrupt, and state capturers soon came knocking at the door for a spot in parliament. People like ousted judge John Hlophe and those who fared poorly before the Zondo commission, such as Siyabonga Gama, Brian Molefe, and Lucky Montana. Mzwanele Manyi, who also had a tough time before the Zondo commission, only resigned from the EFF two and a half months after the election and was recently appointed MKP's chief whip.

And then Zuma brutally kicked out a large chunk of the sitting MPs to make room for the Johnny-come-lately's.

It was a bonus for MKP when Floyd Shivambu resigned as deputy leader of the EFF and was appointed as national organiser for MKP — at least he has ten years of party-political experience.

But Shivambu is not Zulu and was never in the Zuma or RET inner circle — in fact, he and Julius Malema hounded Zuma more than anyone else when he was still president. Zuma will not give him a free hand to do what he thinks needs to be done. Moreover, his talents as a political strategist are suspect since the EFF's support has declined under his and Malema's leadership.

One of the people who ensured that Zuma replaced Mbeki in 2007, Zwelenzima Vavi, then secretary-general of Cosatu, said in a recent interview with Natasha Marrian of the Financial Mail that he is watching MKP closely and sees a repeat of what happened back then.

“He draws this unconditional love and loyalty that is completely illogical. He has gone as far as to say to them that if he had been allowed to finish the nine months he had in office, he would have turned things around. He says he would have expropriated land without compensation, nationalised the Reserve Bank and all the banks and nationalised the mining industry.

“And they believe him," he laughs. "He is fooling these comrades." But for how long?

MKP's kryptonite will be that the government of national unity governs effectively and makes a tangible difference in quality of life for black citizens.

If that doesn’t happen, MKP, as chaotic as it is, could take over a number of local governments in 2026 and even beat the ANC in 2029.

If MKP sticks to what it is proclaiming today, it will be catastrophic for our democracy and our economy.

♦ VWB ♦

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