MK Party leader Jacob Zuma has announced that he has launched a legal application against the ANC and its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to set aside the decision to expel him from the former liberation movement.
In a media statement on Thursday, MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said the ANC underwent a “kangaroo court process” to expel Zuma in July 2024.
“Today, 26 June 2025, as we mark the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter, the uMkhonto weSizwe Party announces that its president, Jacob Zuma, has launched an application against Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC in the high court to set aside the unlawful decision of the ANC to terminate his 65-year-long membership of the ANC,” Ndhlela said.
Party backs groundbreaking case
“This follows the kangaroo court process undertaken by the ANC of Ramaphosa, which culminated in the purported expulsion of president Zuma towards the end of last year.
“President Zuma is on record saying that his membership in the real ANC of [Albert] Luthuli, [Oliver] Tambo, and [Nelson] Mandela cannot be erased by sellouts and DA puppets like Ramaphosa and Mbalula.
“It was indeed the sellout tendencies of these traitors that led to the formation of the MK Party on December 16, 2023, and the removal of the ANC from power five months later, in the May 2024 elections.”
Ndhlela continued: “The symbolic institution of this application on Freedom Charter Day serves as a reminder of the unforgivable betrayal of the people by the ANC of Ramaphosa, which has reversed even the small gains achieved since 1994.
“It did so by entering into the sellout so-called GNU [government of national unity] deal, which is nothing but a grand coalition with the right-wing DA and the Freedom Front Plus.
“The MK Party is fully behind president Zuma in this groundbreaking case which will hopefully see his dual membership of the MK Party and the real ANC, not the sellout ANC of Ramaphosa, restored.”
Dual membership
Ndhlela said such an outcome will “bring us” closer to the much-needed unity of black people in the centuries-old struggle for total liberation and the return of the land to its rightful owners.
“It is one of the strategies employed in the pursuit of that dream of unity that the constitution of the MK Party allows for dual membership in exceptional circumstances.
“Section 5A (13) states that: Save for highly exceptional circumstances and strategic circumstances and with the approval of the national officials and the national high command, members of the MK Party are not allowed to be members of another political party, except organisations in formal alliance with the MK Party,” Ndhlela said.
The ANC expelled Zuma for his endorsement of the MK Party prior to the May 2024 general elections.
The ANC found him guilty of violating its constitutional rules by interacting with a rival political party. After elections, the MK Party emerged as the third-largest political party.
