By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) has confirmed that it has finally expelled its former president, Jacob Zuma for founding and campaigning for the breakaway uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party in violation of its constitution.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula told a media briefing at its Luthuli House headquarters that the party’s National Disciplinary Committee (NDC) had found Zuma guilty on two counts and had ruled that he be expelled.
Zuma, who once led the ANC, was suspended from the party in January after announcing he would support the MK Party in the general election. He later became the leader and face of MK.
Zuma, 82, who has been an ANC party member for 60 years, was found guilty of founding and campaigning for the MK party.
“The charged member is found guilty of contravening rule 25. of the ANC Constitution, read with subsection (2), for prejudicing the integrity or repute of the organisation by acting in collaboration with a registered political party, to wit the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, which is not in alliance with the ANC, in a manner contrary to the aims, policies and objectives of the ANC,” the NDC said in its ruling.
Mbalula said Zuma has been found guilty by the party of “prejudicing the integrity” of the ANC by leading a rival party, which now has 58 seats in South Africa’s parliament.
“Former president Jacob Zuma has actively impugned the integrity of the ANC and campaigned to dislodge the ANC from power while claiming that he had not severed his membership. His conduct is irreconcilable with the spirit of organizational discipline and letter of the ANC constitution,” Mbalula said.
“He has meted out a host of anti-revolutionary outbursts, including mischievously calling into question the credibility of our electoral processes without cause and discrediting the rationale of our judicial system.
“The political values and democratic institutions he is mobilising against were consciously embedded into our constitutional dispensation by the ANC,” Mbalula added.
Although the party has shown Zuma little mercy, the former president has been granted the right to approach the National Disciplinary Committee of Appeal within 21 days.
MK Party performed better than expected in the poll and won about 15 percent of the vote, a major factor in the ANC’s loss of its majority for the first time since the apartheid era.
The ANC won 40.18 percent of the vote in the election, down from the 57.50 percent it garnered in 2019, forcing it into a coalition government for the first time since it took power at the end of white minority rule in 1994. MK is now the official opposition.
MK Party meanwhile denounced the expulsion and accused the ANC’s disciplinary committee of behaving like a “kangaroo court.”
The party responded to media reports that Zuma had been expelled in a statement earlier on Monday, criticising the ANC’s process and condemning “grave injustices” against Zuma.
“Zuma will engage his legal team to urgently determine the course of action,” it said.
Zuma, whose nine years in office from 2009 were marked by corruption scandals and sluggish economic growth, has been at odds with the ANC’s leadership since he was forced to quit as party leader in 2018. He has repeatedly lashed out against his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa.