Energy management: The structure of the uMkhonto weSizwe celebration ensures Jacob Zuma is the almighty ruler. Photograph: Luba Lesolle/Getty Photos
Thursday.
If the occasions of latest weeks and months are something to go by, all roads would seem to guide, politically talking, to Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) celebration.
It’s not simply the 45% of voters in KwaZulu-Natal who determined to dump the ANC, the Inkatha Freedom Get together and the Financial Freedom Fighters (EFF) for the previous head of state’s new celebration on 29 Could.
Or the flurry of leaders of zero-seat events who jumped on the MK bandwagon as quickly as they noticed a way forward for gathering a R350 grant month-to-month unfolding on the leaderboard on the nationwide outcomes centre.
The one-(wo)man-and-a-webcam wonders who sprang up throughout Mzansi within the build-up to the elections traded their handful of votes for a inexperienced T-shirt within the days that adopted — some extraordinarily low-hanging fruit for the MK celebration because it consolidated its election win.
Since then there’s been a gradual motion of former bureaucrats, technocrats, securocrats and jurists — effectively, one former impeached jurist — into the ranks of the Zuma celebration and onto its parliamentary benches.
John Hlophe and associates sashayed into parliament when the MK celebration determined to take part, simply in time for payday on the fifteenth, pre-election lists submitted to the Electoral Fee of South Africa be damned.
EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu adopted a month or two later, sparking an exodus of celebration members and leaders into MK in numerous components of the nation the place it had misplaced floor — and legislature seats.
Today, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Home is vibing Montrose, a midway cease on the street to Nxamalala, because the MK celebration continues to cannibalise it and different allies within the progressive caucus as a part of its consolidation programme forward of the native authorities elections in 2026.
Former public protector — and now former EFF MP — Busisiwe Mkhwebane says she remains to be making use of her thoughts as to her subsequent transfer after bailing from the Pink Berets on Wednesday, the most recent of its leaders to take action.
However all indications are that she, too, will make the pilgrimage to Nxamalala earlier than very lengthy, becoming a member of the lengthy line of ANC and EFF leaders to take action since Zuma launched the celebration on 16 December final yr.
It shouldn’t be lengthy earlier than Mkhwebane takes the parliamentary oath for the second time in the middle of a yr — there have to be one other private and South African first there — and is again on the opposition benches, this time as an MK celebration MP.
I’m hoping uBaba deploys Mkhwebane as Hlophe’s stand-in till the impeached choose’s authorized dramas because the celebration’s consultant on the Judicial Service Fee (JSC) are resolved.
Not that I’ve something towards Papa Penny, however the wave of public outrage that Mkhwebane’s appointment to the JSC would generate could be good for amusing.
Hopefully the concept of throwing the impeached public protector among the many JSC pigeons appeals to the outdated man’s sense of humour as effectively.
We will see.
The leaders of the opposite small events on the opposition aspect of the chamber have to be more and more nervous of their newfound pals in inexperienced, who’re busy numbering their numbers forward of 2026.
The MK celebration’s structure that Shivambu unveiled final week doesn’t speak about elective conferences and provides Zuma extra energy than God, but it surely additionally permits its members to be members of different events.
It sounds fairly outlandish, as a good bit of the MK structure does, however the celebration went into the elections telling folks to vote for them whereas remaining within the ANC and it virtually obtained Zuma the 50% plus one he wanted for his celebration to manipulate KwaZulu-Natal alone.
It might not work on the ANC constituency once more, or on the voting base of different events, however Julius Malema and everyone else eager to retain their seats on the opposition benches — and their id politically — shall be sleeping with one eye open from now to 2026.
The South African Communist Get together (SACP) can also be speaking about deploying all 17 of its votes elsewhere when native authorities elections come round once more as a result of the ANC has given most of its cupboard seats to Helen Zille’s lot.
The SACP has been threatening to divorce the ANC since Blade Nzimande was within the Younger Communist League, and eventually could have an precise — if considerably unlikely — different for the primary time.
Its leaders are actually reprising 2007 and speaking up an alliance with Zuma’s celebration sooner or later over the ANC’s newest failure to seek the advice of.
That ought to go effectively.
In line with the MK celebration’s structure, uBaba giveth and uBaba taketh away — undemocratic centralism — so one needs Solly and the comrades energy of their seek for session.