By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC), affirmed its decision to expel its former leader Jacob Zuma on Friday, rejecting his efforts to remain in the party.
The ANC expelled Zuma in July, casting him as a traitor after he had formed a rival political organization in a bid to challenge the party’s dominance.
The party’s National Disciplinary Committee of Appeal (NDCA) upheld Zuma’s removal from the party, it announced on Friday.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the Jacob G Zuma Foundation said the former statesman strongly rejected “the notion that the ANC, under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa, has the authority to expel him from the movement to which he has dedicated his life.”
The ANC criticized Zuma’s actions as a severe breach of organisational discipline, citing his establishment and leadership of a rival political party, the MK Party, as a direct assault on the movement’s historical mission and principles.
The Foundation said that Zuma remains fully engaged in his political and social commitments.
It added that Zuma presided over a two-day meeting of the National High Command of Umkhonto weSizwe on Friday, and on Saturday, he attended the funeral of six MK women members who tragically lost their lives in an accident while travelling to Nkandla.
Zuma is expected to consult with his legal team, his ANC representative Tony Yengeni, his family, and his political comrades to deliberate on the way forward.
Zuma, who had been a member of the ANC since he was a teenager, was arrested by the apartheid police at 21 and served time in prison alongside Nelson Mandela and other political stalwarts.
He became president of the party in 2007, but his tenure was marred by scandal and corruption.
After his second term as the party’s president ended in December 2017, Zuma was forced two months later to step down as president of South Africa amid political pressure.
His administration later came under scrutiny from a judicial inquiry into corruption, and Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison for refusing to testify before the inquiry.
Rather than disappear into political oblivion, he swore revenge on the party he had been a member of for over six decades.
Zuma became the leader of a new party, uMkhonto weSizwe, known as the MK party, which came in third in the parliamentary election, winning 58 out of 400 seats.