MK Party President Jacob Zuma addressing a media briefing at the IEC’s national results centre following the Party’s stunning performance in South Africa’s national and provincial elections in May this year. Picture: African News Agency
Prof. Sipho Seepe
THE emergence of political parties such as the EFF and the MKP is a result of the failure of the ANC to deliver on its historical mission.
A party whose mission was anchored on the liberation of black people in general, and Africans in particular has transmogrified into an apologist for white monopoly capital. Nelson Mandela’s 1964 characterisation that “the lack of human dignity experienced by Africans is the direct result of the policy of white supremacy. White supremacy implies black inferiority” remains true today.
After 30 years of the ANC in government, South Africa has earned the lowly status of being a poster child of global inequality. The ANC leaders in government are mere colonial administrators. The party cannot imagine itself existing without white tutelage. Far from embarking on the next phase of the economic struggle, the ANC’s preoccupation is on remaining in office. The failure of the post-1994 political dispensation derives from the party’s failure to dismantle the apartheid architecture.
This has resulted, as Chris Malikane, professor of Economics at the University of Witwatersrand notes “a glaring anomaly—a palpable historical injustice, and gross national humiliation that, almost three decades into democracy, the African natives in South Africa, which make up 90% of the population, own and control nothing of any social significance… A vast 70% of the African population lives below R1 300 a month, compared to 20% of the Indian population and 4% of the white population. Only 21% of top managers in the private sector are black, while 68% of top management positions remain white. Yet black people constitute 90% of South Africa’s economically active population, while whites constitute 8.7%.”
The ANC’s success is in the creation of a paper-thin layer of black elite. These instant millionaires are only happy to receive the crumbs falling from the master’s table. Dressed in borrowed robes, they serve at the pleasure of their white masters. Meanwhile, the majority continue to wallow under conditions of degrading poverty. It is within this context that MKP came into existence.
With the ANC seeming to have betrayed its historical mission, the MKP has positioned itself as “the uncompromising custodian of progressive leftist politics. It is a party born of struggle, shaped by the resilience of South Africa’s working class, and fuelled by the unyielding pursuit of economic justice and social transformation.” If electoral outcomes are anything to go by, its message appears to resonate with a sizeable group of voters.
At the heart of MK P's success is Jacob Zuma’s magnetic appeal. Zuma is arguably the second most popular politician in the country after former President Nelson Mandela. On a toe-to-toe basis, his political rivals, such as former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, have ended up on the proverbial canvas. Insults and consistent denigration of Zuma’s persona have not diminished the expression of adoration he receives wherever he goes. People’s love for him is inscribed in their hearts.
As the MK Party embarks on a series of events to mark its first anniversary celebrations, it does so on the back of a stunning electoral performance in the May 2024 national and provincial elections for a newcomer on the political scene. Within six months of its existence, it became the third-largest party.
Thanks to the GNU, MKP was catapulted into the position of being the official opposition party in the national parliament. It scored the same victories in several provinces. The party is represented in seven out of the nine provincial legislatures. It is the official opposition party in Mpumalanga. In KZN MKP received the biggest number of votes which would have made it a party in government.
Again, thanks to collusion by the DA, the ANC, and IFP, that was not to be. There is little doubt that despite spirited efforts by some in the media fraternity to discredit its leader, the party has continued to gain traction. It cannot be gainsaid, as its Secretary General Floyd Shivambu averred, that the party is “attracting the best the brains in terms of people who are supposed to lead the organization”.
Notwithstanding the above, MKP has been poor at managing its internal challenges. A series of court battles have dented what would otherwise be an unstoppable movement. Such defeat would erode the party’s credibility in the long run.
MKP’s stunning electoral performance and growth come at the expense of other political parties. The biggest loser is the African National Congress (ANC). The party’s share of the vote fell from fifty-seven per cent in 2021 it plummeted to forty per cent. By any stretch of the imagination, the loss of seventeen per cent in one electoral cycle is cataclysmic.
This loss put to bed the repeated falsehood that President Cyril Ramaphosa is more popular than the ANC. Since taking over as its president in 2017, the ANC has lost a staggering twenty per cent of the share of the vote. Anywhere in the world, a leader with such an appalling track record would have resigned voluntarily. In South Africa, such leaders are celebrated.
If anything, MKP’s electoral performance disproves the falsehood propagated by lazy political analysts that former President Zuma is a spent force. Ironically, it took Fikile Mbalula, the Secretary General of the ANC, to state the obvious. “EFF, DA, all small political parties combined did not defeat the ANC, Jacob Zuma did, coming out of the ranks of the African National Congress”.
Pointing out the most obvious fact, Mbalula averred. “We are fighting a Ferrari there with a (Toyota) Conquest, so we need to match that with a flying machine that moves faster in seconds to surpass what is happening there."
Julius Malema, the President of the EFF had earlier made the same observation. Unimpressed with former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s convenient amnesia during the Judicial Services Commission interviews, Mr. Malema retorted. “I accept that Zuma is not Mandela. But when you come from KZN, Zuma is the Mandela of KZN. That’s why you even speak about his role in dealing with violence in KZN…. President Zuma asked to see you, twice in a hotel, you agreed to go and meet him, and you remember all of those details. The only detail in two meetings you don't remember is why President Zuma wanted to meet you well.”
Asked what she thought of the “MK party bursting onto the scene”, Helen Zille, the Federal Chair of the DA had this to say. “[I] got tipped off that he [Zuma] was going to start a party. That was a time when my political analysis failed me. Because I thought this party [couldn't] get anywhere. I mean here's a person who's been so seriously implicated by the Zondo Commission in state capture, been thrown out of the ANC effectively, this and that, there's no way that a party led by him is going to have any traction. I've never been more wrong…those are the power of identity politics as people choose it for themselves. I mean that was a very powerful Zulu vote because they were saying…. Don't mess with the most senior Zulu person in politics today, because we all take it as an insult.”
Zille and her fellow travellers are victims of their propaganda. They undermine and underestimate the MKP at their own peril. With ANC on an irreversible decline, MKP has become a key player in black politics.
* Professor Sipho P. Seepe is a Higher Education and Strategy Consultant.
** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The African.