MK ZUMA VS ANC ELECTION 2024 ( PART 1)

The 29th of May 2024 will be a landmark election in South Africa as the newly-formed uMkhonto weSizwe political party (Spear of the Nation) MK will battle the African National Congress (ANC) for the very soul of South Africa (SA). For the first time in the 30 years of democratic SA, the liberation movement ANC is under threat of losing its 50 per cent majority allowing it to appoint a president and to form a government.

The dependence of the Kingdom of Eswatini on SA economically dictates that emaSwati take a keen interest its political trajectory, as it has grave consequences for our economic future. The upcoming election can potentially change the political landscape dramatically as we will explore in this article. The  ANC has been in power since SA became a democracy in 1994. It has consistently achieved a two-thirds majority, with its largest victories being 69.7 per cent in 2004, 66.4 per cent in 1999 and 65.9 per cent in 2009. However, the ANC’s electoral dominance declined to 57.5 per cent in the 2019 general election: the party’s lowest electoral win in its 27 years in power.

Today it would appear that the ANC presides over a robust capitalist democracy, a far cry from the socialist ideologies of Comrade Chris Hani. If anything, the private economic sector is stronger than ever as a consequence of privatisation and market liberalisation. Senior ANC leaders enjoy increasingly close connections with business, as even a cursory glance at the parliamentary register of private interests will reveal. Entrepreneurial undertakings by husbands and wives of politicians tighten the links between politics and boardrooms even further. Many of the struggle leaders of the 1980s have now become extremely wealthy.

The ANC government finds itself at odds with its former allies in the trade union movement (as well as, to an extent, the Communist Party) over aspects of foreign affairs, macroeconomic policy and land reform. More significantly, in relative terms, the ANC feels electorally most vulnerable in the former heartlands of its historic support, in the townships of Gauteng and elsewhere.

Fikile Mbalula had to change his G-Wagen Mercedes-Benz to try and blend in and navigate the pothole-filled township roads to campaign. Here significant numbers of working-class citizens prefer to stay at home rather than vote at all. Meanwhile, it would appear that the ANC’s electoral strength is more and more concentrated in the countryside amongst the poorest and most marginalised. Those who approve most strongly of the government’s performance are most likely to be living in rural areas and to be recipients of pensions, disability grants and other kinds of welfare payments. Their numbers have quadrupled since 1994.

Enter Jacob Zuma and MK
The split within the ANC has been centred around the question of Radical Economic transformation, which was adopted by the ANC but has failed to see the light of day. This has seen the split of the party most significantly by the charismatic Julius Malema, who left with a large part of the ANC youth wing. The party is torn between the economic forces of the West and their capitalist ideology and the socialist ideology which was based on the workers and land reform. More recently the ANC has been dealt an even greater blow. The formation of the uMkhonto weSizwe political party was fashioned in the form of the original uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) (Spear of the Nation), which was the military wing of the ANC.

Founded on December 16, 1961, by the ANC and SACP to take up arms to physically fight the political, social, and economic oppression against blacks by the South African Apartheid regime. This action coupled with international sanctions, successfully forced the Apartheid regime to the negotiation table, leading to the first democratic elections in 1994. The radical transformation faction within the ANC, led by former President Jacob Zuma and many others feels the black man has not achieved Economic freedom and hence the need to revive uMkhonto weSizwe to fight but not with weapons this time but with the power of the ballot box using the black African vote. They contend that the white monopoly capitalist which has been dubbed the ‘Stellenbosch Mafia’ continues to deny South Africans economic freedom through the control of all means of production particularly land which they stole from the Africans using various apartheid laws. This powerful, white-controlled group has managed to compromise some of the ANC leadership with money to derail the radical economic transformation and the repatriation of land without compensation.

The two-thirds Majority to amend the Constitution
The proponents of radical Economic transformation in the person of Jacob Zuma and his MK Party, Julius Malema, and his EFF are up against a very steep hill. They do not only have to win the May 29th elections but get a two-thirds majority to change the constitution, which guarantees minority protection and property rights. This is regardless of the historical fact that the land was stolen in many cases.

The other mammoth task is to convince the ANC of the Ramaphosa faction which is still in power. Moreover, the general South African black middle-class public has been brainwashed by the white-controlled media that nothing good can ever come out of former President Zuma and that he is corrupt. The fact that the state spent One Billion Rand on a State Capture inquiry with more than seven hundred criminal cases against Zuma but could not prove even one only managing to catch him in contempt of court, should make one think.  Mostly white law firms got the One Billion Rands.

Now there is no money for National Persecuting Authority NPA. Yes, many black businessmen became millionaires during the so-called ‘wasted Zuma years’ but Black empowerment BEE worked.  The other challenge is the black mindset, which believes everything from a white man is good, to the extent that our politicians rush to emulate the rich white man at the expense of their own. In next week part two we will analyse the Zuma and MK Party Legal cases. Comment: septembereswatini@gmail.com  

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