By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
After 30 years of dominating South African politics, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will face its toughest election this month as most opinion polls predict it will lose its parliamentary majority for the first time.
Jacob Zuma added a new dimension when he announced in December that he was turning his back on the ANC he once led and returning to politics with anew party.
Zuma’s Umkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) is not expected to challenge the top three, but it is expected to further erode the ANC’s vote just as the ruling party faces its sternest election test. The 81-year-old former leader still commands support, especially in his home KwaZulu-Natal province.
His reemergence also raised security concerns for the election after his conviction for contempt of court and prison sentence in 2021 sparked a week of rioting and looting that led to the deaths of more than 350 people in the worst violence in South Africa since the troublesome last days of apartheid.
Zuma is involved in a court battle over whether his criminal conviction prevents him from standing as a candidate for Parliament. There are concerns over unrest if he is disqualified.
The ANC is still expected to win the largest share of votes, but if it receives less than 50% as predicted, it will need the help of coalition partners to re-elect the 71-year-old Cyril Ramaphosa.
South Africans will go to the polls on May 29.
MK party is aiming to win a parliamentary majority in the upcoming election so that it can implement reforms without resistance from opponents, Zuma said on Saturday.
He told thousands of supporters who gathered at Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg that his party would build factories where many people would be employed and provide free education to the country’s youth.
“We want our children to study for free, especially those from poor households because the poverty we have was not created by us. It was created by settlers who took everything, including our land. We’ll take all those things back, make money and educate our children,” he said.
He has also pledged to change the country’s Constitution to restore more powers to traditional leaders, saying their role in society has been reduced by giving more powers to magistrates and judges.
Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for defying a court order to appear before a judicial commission of inquiry which was probing corruption allegation in government and state-owned companies during his presidential term from 2009 to 2018.
In 2018, he was forced to resign as the country’s president following wide-ranging corruption allegations, but he has made a political return and is now seeking to become the country’s president again.
Poverty among black people is the reason behind South Africa’s high levels of crime, according to the former president.
“Our hunger and poverty is what creates a perception that we are criminals, we don’t have a brain, we have nothing. That time is over, because we are good people who are giving, but some people are pushing us towards criminality,” he said.
Zuma said his party was aiming to get more than 65% of the national vote in the upcoming elections as it would allow them to change many laws in the country’s constitution.