Jacob Zuma at the MK Party’s rally in KwaXimba, KwaZulu-Natal, in January. [Picture: Doctor Ngcobo / Independent Newspapers]
A myriad of allegations have swarmed around Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) just a month before South Africa heads to the polls. The embattled party is facing allegations of fraud and a leadership purge just before it contests the national ballot for the first time.
According to City Press, the party forged signatures to secure its place on the ballot. By law, political parties must obtain and submit a minimum of 15 000 signatures for it to be registered for the election.
In the run-up to the tight race, Lennox Ntsodo, a former senior official in the party, claimed he oversaw a team of 20 forgers. Reports alleged they obtained names, ID numbers and cell phone numbers off a jobseeker database belonging to the Cape Metro Council.
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Purge, forgery and personality cults
While battling the fraud allegation, the MKP is also experiencing what has been described by many as a “purge”. Based on “intelligence”, Zuma and the party’s leadership axed co-founder Jabulani Khumalo, among others.
To political analyst Sandile Swana, who spoke to Cape Talk on Monday, this came as no surprise. “We have parties that are run on the basis of a personality cult in South Africa,” he said.
Zuma appears as the party’s prime parliamentary candidate for the upcoming election. Khumalo, who appeared second until being kicked out, was accused of collaborating with the African National Congress (ANC), though the party withheld the details.
Swana said the MKP came from a background of purges, seeing as it was an offshoot of the ANC. “If MK members, including Zuma himself, are purging people, it is because of the political DNA that they come from and they will continue to purge people,” he said.
“Do not underestimate that the ANC culture is a very brutal culture to its own members, and MK is cut from that same cloth.”
Responding to the fraud allegation, he said: “Fraud is a norm in the ANC where they come from. It’s what they do. It would not be odd…”
