Twenty-three months after Jacob Zuma announced himself as a member of a new political formation called the MKP, the jokes about and inside the entity do not stop writing themselves.
Purges, back-stabbings and midnight media releases dominate MKP discourse.
It’s all very funny, but it’s extremely dangerous because this party could take over the running of KwaZulu-Natal any minute now if the governing coalition in the province collapses.
Then the joke will be on us as MKP’s chaos enters the halls of provincial government.
Last week, Zuma returned from a trip to Burkina Faso (where he met the country’s unelected, undemocratic military leader Ibrahim Traore) and suspended the party membership of impeached judge John Hlophe, removing him as leader of the party’s parliamentary caucus.
Zuma’s action followed several nights of firings and late-night media statements in the party.
Hlophe had fired Colleen Makhubele as the party’s parliamentary chief whip and appointed Des “Weekend Special” van Rooyen, notorious for serving as finance minister under Zuma for just a weekend in the mid-2010s, as her replacement.
Officially, the party says Zuma suspended Hlophe because of his “ill-discipline” after Hlophe acted unilaterally in changing chief whips.
Hlophe was suspended just a week after Zuma’s longtime defender, Tony Yengeni, had ditched the ANC and been installed as the MKP’s second deputy president.
The irony of having Hlophe, an impeached former Western Cape judge president, as first deputy president while Yengeni, a convicted fraudster, was the second deputy president seems to have escaped party members.
Last week’s purges are nothing new for the MKP.
SA’s main opposition party has over the past two years been the scene of back-stabbing, firings, breakaways, purges and all manner of other political skulduggery. It’s the culture.
When former EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu joined the MKP in November 2024, he said it was “my best decision ever”. He has now been bundled out.
He should have known that his demise was inevitable — by my count there have been eight secretaries-general of the party since December 2023.
Shivambu, Hlophe, Makhubele and anyone else who thinks they can operate in the MKP have failed the simple cognitive challenge of recognising what this entity is.
It is a family enterprise and a feudal entity in which there is only one sacrosanct authority: Zuma.
Zuma himself does not hide this. The party’s interim constitution designates him as the “Commander of the Organisation” and states that he provides “political and ideological leadership and guidance to the whole organisation”.
He is the Supreme Leader, and the only people who have power outside of himself are his daughter, Duduzile Sambudla-Zuma, and party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela.
This trio has over the past two years demonstrated its power and absolute control of the MKP by tossing aside party founder Jabulani Khumalo and the coterie of leaders he started out with in about September 2023, before Zuma performed his takeover of the entity in December 2024.
Since then, no one has been spared. If you do not prostrate yourself before Zuma and do his bidding, you are out.
This tells you what the culture of the MKP is now. Total and absolute obedience to the diktats and whims of Zuma is demanded.
Internal democracy is non-existent. Connections to the top three are essential.
Talent means nothing. Hard work means nothing.
It is, in a sense, a cult. To operate within it, you must leave your brain at the door.
So, new passengers on the MKP train such as Yengeni need to be clear about what they are joining.
The freedom that Yengeni has enjoyed to attack the president of his organisation (he has thrown barbs at Cyril Ramaphosa for the past seven years while being an ANC national executive member) is over.
If he says one negative word about Zuma he will be out. Further, Zuma is a ruthless man. He has throughout his political career tossed out friend and foe alike.
The suspended Hlophe, for example, wrecked his legal career for Zuma. Now Zuma has repaid him handsomely by tossing him aside like a used prophylactic.
Sadly for SA, these shenanigans should be scary. Zuma and his key advisers are running their party like a circus where the ringmaster has left the building. It is chaos and confusion.
This is the party which has been machinating to take over power in KwaZulu-Natal — and it is very close to doing so.
If it does succeed in elbowing out the current ruling coalition and is installed in power, expect mayhem in that province.
The place will be run like a cult and undemocratic fiefdom. Whoever becomes premier will be expected to treat Zuma like a king, and to lie down and take instruction from this king of the MKP.
It will be absolute and utter chaos.
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