ANC first deputy secretary-general Nomvula Mokonyane says she holds the firm view that her former ally, MKP President Jacob Zuma, should have been expelled from the ANC the moment he announced the formation of his new party in December 2023.
Mokonyane believes that the ANC’s capitulation on Zuma, “the owner of the private property MKP”, all the way to the 2024 national and provincial elections was a massive political blunder that cost ANC votes.
This indecision on the part of the ANC, she added, allowed Zuma to freely use ANC infrastructure in the form of its branches to deliver the uppercut blow that brought the former liberation movement to its knees.
Wide-ranging interview
Mokonyane was speaking to Sunday World Engage in a wide-ranging interview this week.
Zuma’s MKP gained an impressive 15% of the vote in the 2024 polls, while the ANC dipped by the same margin. This was just five months after its formation without elected leadership and branches of its own.
Mokonyane says the ANC should have moved with speed and declared Zuma a non-ANC member the moment he announced the formation of MKP and embarked on a nationwide dissemination of the message to all branches.
“I still believe that there are things that we could have handled better, like the postponement of resolving the issue of Jacob Zuma. It was unfortunate, all because we thought we were democrats and we must put him under due process.”
You are no longer a member of the ANC
“We should have just wiped him off and said, ‘You are no longer a member of the ANC,’. And gone to the structures of the ANC and everywhere and said he’s no longer a member of the ANC, like we did with Cope.”
“With Cope, we were very clear. So, with this one (Zuma), we prolonged it even post-elections. So, sitting back and reflecting, I think that’s one of the costly mistakes we committed. We should have dealt with the influence of the man and exposed him for who he is.”
Mokonyane, whose political career reached its twilight during Zuma’s stint as head of state, said she no longer carried a brief for the man. The ANC, she said, underestimated Zuma’s machinations and politics of destruction and would only wake up from slumber when the elections train had long left the station.
“ANC of Ramaphosa”
Among other issues, the ANC should have addressed early in expelling Zuma, she argued, was his “ANC of Ramaphosa” rhetoric, which she is adamant was aimed at fermenting tribalism within the party.
“So the issue of Zuma throwing the ‘ANC of Ramaphosa’ card around cost us a lot, and the inability of us to be responsive to issues that were under our control and we were able to deal with was very heavy.”
The dragging of feet in dealing with Zuma was based on a gross miscalculation that he would be all on his own without foot soldiers in his MKP. “We assumed that, no, he will not have the capacity. But because he’s an operator, he didn’t go and set up his own structures; he worked with people within the ANC.
“So, the uppercut was this one (MKP) that just pulled us down and knocked us where we least expected. So, I think for me now, what the ANC must learn to do is to understand the environment and be responsive and not be too inward-looking.”
Destructive Character
Mokonyane said Zuma should have been pushed out immediately because of his destructive character. In her view, even the formation of the MKP was not a serious endeavour to take over the levers of the state. It was a move to spite the ANC.
“My own reading, I do not think Zuma was ready to go into government; he was contesting to destabilise. That is why even when he was supposed to take over KwaZulu-Natal, he was protesting in the streets,” she said.
“The man got a shock; he was not planning to go into government. He was planning to destabilise as always, and elections were another site to destabilise and protest and so on.
