Game Of Thrones: How Jacob Zuma And Umkhonto Wesizwe Party Are Positioning Themselves As Kingmakers

In our Greyville offices in Durban, we have a framed front page of the Daily News late special edition of June 14, 2005 with a picture of Thabo Mbeki on the left and Jacob Zuma on the right with a headline in the centre that screams: YOURE FIRED! .

The scandal surrounding Zuma ends in his dramatic sacking by President Thabo Mbeki today, the blurb of that front page adds.

Fast-forward to September 2008 and that very front page could have been used as a template when Zuma turned the tables on Mbeki after his backers in the ANC's National Executive Committee decided to recall Mbeki from the Presidency of South Africa .

It was an unprecedented move that had marked the first time the ANC had recalled a sitting president.

This after Zuma, backed by the ANCYL, Cosatu and SA Communist Party defeated Mbeki at the ANC's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 .

Mbeki accepted the decision to recall him and resigned, paving the way for Kgalema Motlanthe to become interim president until the next general elections in 2009, which saw Zuma ascend to the presidency of South Africa.

Zumas presidency was, however, marked by scandals such as the multi-million rand taxpayer funded renovations for this personal home in Nkandla , to allegations that the Gupta family had undue influence over him and had been able to capture state departments to line their own pockets .

In February 2018, after extensive deliberation and amid fears that Zuma's continued presidency could harm the party's performance in the 2019 general elections, the NEC decided to recall Jacob Zuma from the presidency.

This decision was a clear indication that Zuma no longer had the support of the ANCs new party leadership under Cyril Ramaphosa who had narrowly defeated Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma - who was backed by Zuma - in the 2017 ANC conference in Polokwane.

Despite this, Zuma was initially resistant to resigning, causing a tense standoff.

He gave a defiant television interview in which he questioned the ANC's motives and insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

However, facing the prospect of a no-confidence vote in Parliament and the loss of support from the ANC's parliamentary caucus, Zuma announced his resignation on the evening of February 14, 2018 ending his nearly nine-year presidency.

Despite not being in government, Zuma still wielded immense political power, especially in KZN where his supporters' rallying cry was the song, Wenzeni uZuma? [What has Zuma done wrong?] .

People in KwaZulu-Natal had never forgotten the vital role Zuma played in bringing peace between the warring factions of the ANC and IFP that threatened to take South Africa to the brink of civil war in the early 1990s.

If Ramaphosa and his backers in the ANC had thought that they had buried Zuma once and for all at the ANCs 55th national conference in 2022 when they beat Zweli Mkhize Zumas preferred candidate they were to be sadly mistaken.

As South Africa heads into its most pivotal election in a generation where the ruling ANC is at its weakest under the presidency of Ramaphosa, Zuma has thrown the proverbial spanner in the works by heading the formation of the breakaway uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) that is set to redraw South Africas political map, delivering a wake-up call to the ANC and shaking the aspirations of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to their core.

A recent opinion poll predicts that the MKP could become the third-largest party in the country, outperforming the EFF. T

he opinion poll has put support for the MK Party at 13%, and EFF at 10% and if it is to be believed, in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma's MKP is set to be the largest party, with 25% of the vote.

The same poll puts the ANC at 20%) Democratic Alliance (DA) at 19%and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) at 19%.

Zuma and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party are not just challenging the ANC; it's threatening to snatch its crown jewel KwaZulu-Natal.

This is not mere political rivalry; it's an insurrection against the ANCs two-decade dominion over the province that was won overwhelmingly in 2009 under Zuma.

With Zuma at the helm, the MKP is exploiting deep-rooted loyalties and discontent in the ANC to potentially flip the province, a move that would be nothing short of historic and could cause deep political fissures in a province with an ugly history of political violence.

But it is not just the ANC that should be worried about the emergence of MKP as a political force in South Africa.

The EFF, under Julius M