By Rachel Mohamed
The African National Congress (ANC) National Disciplinary Committee has expelled former president, Jacob Zuma, following a disciplinary hearing in which the former president was accused of undermining the party, by way of encouraging citizens to vote for the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party during the May 29th national elections while he remained a card-carrying member.
Speaking on VOC PM Drive on Monday, political analyst Zwelethu Jolobe said “the writing was on the wall when Zuma formed the MK Party and not only as a member but eventually became the party’s leader during the elections.”
Jolobe believes former president Jacob Zuma’s approach after forming MK was to first capitalize on the situation “to embarrass the ANC in such a way as to affirm the interest of his party.
While the ANC, for instance, would have initially tried and weighed out their position they didn’t want to give him the privilege and tried to prevent a situation where he humiliated them in public space. Zuma’s interest was to try to bolster the position of his party and that led to him being ousted,” he stated.
The former president has 21 days to appeal the decision to his removal from the ruling party, but Jolobe feels it is irrelevant at this stage whether Zuma will follow up on challenging the ANC because “that is a foregone conclusion.”
He further highlighted the ANC has been splitting up with different factions now for over a decade with high-ranking members leaving the party.
Firstly, with the formation of the Congress of the People (COPE) in 2008 by Mbhazima Shilowa, Mluleki George, and Mosiuoa Lekota.
Following that the former ANC Secretary General and Free State Premier Ace Magashule formed his party African Congress for Transformation (ATM) claiming it a party for the ‘politically abused’ and now the MK party with Zuma.
“This is the third time that the ANC has broken up in fifteen years and it has not been easy, a messy breakup that involved a lot of drama. Most people who tried to break away from the ANC have done that in a way to extract capital from it.”
“As far as the ANC is concerned will try and prevent possible leaks and from Zuma’s point of view will try and make this situation inconvenient and messy serving his party’s interest.”
He noted the balance of power and the party’s political dynamics that there are different factions within the party with the dominant faction being around President Cyril Ramaphosa who is more likely to hold on to power.
“We don’t expect another important breakaway given the catch old party is gone now. And the only ones left now are two alliance partners and if the breakaway happens it will be from Cosatu remember they have also broken away twice in the last fifteen years the case of the South African Communist Party (SACP).”
Furthermore, Jolobe expressed that breakaways are messy, and when movements are traced back to people it spills across in different avenues as the country is now at a more comfortable equilibrium between the ANC and the DA than the MK party.
Therefore, the increase and decrease in all three parties is going to be shaped by the members of all parties.
“If you look at the two breakaways in the last ten years we predict that people are going to move within the three significant parties being the EFF, MK, and ANC depending on the local or national elections and this is far from over,” he concluded.
VOC News
Photo:@DZumaSambudla /X
