The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) led by former President Jacob Zuma is facing an existential crisis.
At the heart of the schism is the squabble over limited party resources and positions of influence.
Aggrieved senior party members are allegedly de-campaigning the party ahead of the key municipal elections in 2026. In the latest instalment of the supposed fight back, Thabiso Nkabinde has vowed to bring the party to its knees.
Nkabinde lost an internal election
This after Nkabinde’s failed bid for election to councillor in the highly contested Msunduzi local municipality in Pietermaritzburg.
“Commanders, these people want us out of MK. We must fight back with everything we’ve got. We can’t spend our hard-earned money supporting political parties and when it [is] our time to benefit, we get nothing for our efforts,” someone alleged to be him says in a leaked voice note.
The message is believed to have been sent to other aggrieved senior party leaders.
The party charged Nkabinde for accepting nomination despite knowing he was not the preferred candidate. That internal election would have made him eligible for the position.
Suspended alongside other senior members
He was then suspended along with axed legislature chief whip Kwazi Mbanjwa.
MKP said Nkabinde’s act was malicious. Another branch member, Cebisile Zuma, was also served with a letter of suspension for her alleged part in the fraudulent nomination.
MKP spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said the party had taken a hardline against any member who doesn’t toe the line.
“MKP is not an organisation of lawlessness and anarchy. We will deal decisively with any member who acts outside the prescriptions of the party constitution.”
Legislators accused of disregarding party instructions
Mbanjwa and other senior party leaders Thobani Zuma and Sifiso Zuma were previously suspended from their provincial legislature duty. The trio, allegedly working in cahoots, refused to hand over the party bank account into which about R60 million the legislature had deposited for party activities. The fund was mainly meant to cover salaries payments to party support staff, resulting in their going for months without being paid. The party has since paid the workers after Zuma intervened.
This week it also emerged that other members in the KZN legislature had secretly supported the IFP in motions debated in the house.
Zuma himself has lamented that the bitter internal leadership feud had a potential to derail the party from its ambition to govern KZN.
“Comrades don’t want to be led. We can’t go on like this,” Zuma is heard warning in one party meeting.
Nkabinde says he is not fighting the party
Nkabinde told Sunday World on Saturday that his WhatsApp conversation was taken out of context.
“I was not saying that I will destroy MK Party as an organisation, but I was referring to those who had sold out in my ward and voted ANC during the by-election,” he said.
The MKP, formed less than six months to May’s general elections, surprised many by winning 45.3% of the vote in KZN.
This made it the biggest party in the province. It was however muscled out of governance when the ANC, IFP, DA and the NFP. The quartet bandied together to form a government of provincial unity.
In the National Assembly, the MKP became the third biggest party after the ANC and DA.
