Fresh from his unceremonious departure from the former governing ANC, KwaZulu-Natal ex-premier Willies Mchunu now wants to rub salt into the wound and propel uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) into power.
The Jacob Zuma-led ANC splinter grouping has set itself a target of defeating both the IFP and the ANC in the upcoming 2026 local government elections.
MK the biggest party in the province
The party got the biggest slice of the electoral cake in KZN, garnering close to 2-million votes during the May 29 general elections. This translated to 45.3% of the votes, falling just short to govern the province on its own.
The MKP was kept out of government by a coalition of the ANC, the IFP, the DA and other parties.
“The people’s choice was the MK Party. The ANC, together with the smaller parties, ganged up against what voters wanted.
“My mission here is to build on the party’s electoral success. We want MK to be a force to be reckoned with,” said Mchunu on the task at hand and being deployed as the provincial convener.
Mission is to win local elections
He stated that the mission was to defeat the ANC and the IFP in the next elections, which are less than two years away.
Mchunu also defined leaving the ANC as a painful process, saying the 10-month-old MK Party was the new liberator of the people.
“I disagreed with what was happening in the ANC for that I was isolated,” he said.
According to Mchunu, what broke the camel’s back was the marriage of convenience between the DA and the party he joined as a young boy.
Party ‘unfairly’ kept out of power
He was also angry that the MK Party had been unfairly snatched of the opportunity to lead KZN.
Mchunu, 76, was regarded as a unifier in the ANC and was even dubbed Makhuzemoyizela” for his ability to use charm and leadership skills in high-stress and deadly situations.
Leading up to this year’s provincial national elections, he was brought in by the ANC to be among its heavyweights to defuse the electoral threat of the MK party.
Currently the MK had one councillor in the province, whom it won during a hotly contested by-election in Umzumbe local municipality on the province’s south coast.
