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What is the real reason that Zuma wants to remain a member of the ANC so badly? by Ronelle Snyders
Former president Jacob Zuma slapped the ANC with a demand letter giving the organisation an ultimatum to reinstate its membership by 31 January or face a court case.
Former president Jacob Zuma’s membership of the ANC has become an existential matter for him, even though he is the president of another party – the MK Party. The question is: why has it reached this level of importance to him while he is the leader of another party? Why isn’t that a contradiction for him?
Recently, especially after the ANC’s National Disciplinary Appeal Committee rejected its appeal against his expulsion, Zuma has given us some insight into his thinking. But this is probably not yet complete enough as an explanation. An extended explanation therefore depends on a projection of his arguments and also on the ‘linking of some dots’.
The first relevant point is that membership of the ANC is not primarily an organisational matter for him. It’s about his political identity. The ANC gave him a life as a public leader, later as national president and political patriarch of Natal. His ANC, Zulu and personal identities became intertwined. This defined him in relation to other Natal parties such as the IFP, especially in the 1990s. No other party – including the MK Party – can play this role.
Association with the ANC is also his guarantee of being part of the South African political mainstream. Other ANC breakaway parties, such as the PAC, COPE or AIC, ended up as marginalised political entities. The fact that the future of MKP is not yet guaranteed and even the EFF’s current uphill battle is a reminder that no party can be compared to the ANC’s status.
Zuma’s contestation of his ANC membership can also be linked to the question of who currently controls the ANC’s legacy as a liberation movement. This is relevant because, despite the ANC’s setback in the latest national and provincial elections, it still enjoys a significant competitive advantage over the other parties that cannot claim the same historical legacy.
In this light and under the current circumstances, it has developed into a struggle between the ANC and MKP over who controls the armed struggle symbolism. (In 2008, the same dynamic developed with COPE and ownership of the Freedom Charter symbolism.) From Zuma’s point of view, the ANC has modernised and developed into a political party with a prominent liberation history, while the MKP is only attached to a part of the liberation history.
Zuma’s attempts to be attached to the MK symbolism are not new. As ANC president, he founded the MK’s Veterans’ Association, sang MK songs on stage and was surrounded by people in MK-camouflaged uniforms. He elevated a military culture in the ANC that was less visible during the Mandela and Mbeki era.
Such an approach was a visual communication strategy to express his radicalism and popularity and was intended to create a contrast to Mbeki’s political stature and economic policies (such as GEAR) where the Left vehemently opposed him as a departure from ANC values and policies. At that time, Zuma had already positioned himself to the Left as a symbol of the “right-wing” ANC.
With regard to the current situation, Zuma’s official argument or explanation for why he should be an ANC member is that he should “save” the ANC led by President Ramaphosa and take it back to its original character. For him, Ramaphosa continued where Mbeki left as President in 2008. Zuma’s historic mission is to turn the process around and restore the ANC to its original form as a liberation organisation. The method he envisages is for the MKP, EFF and ANC to unite. For this to happen, the MKP must win the national elections, bring the parties together and transform them into the new ANC.
Zuma’s implied logic is that he can only do so if he maintains a direct link with the ANC as a member. For example, as a member and former ANC president, he is an ex officio member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee and can attend its meetings. As a member, he will be able to organise a core of resistance within the ANC that cannot be done from outside.
For Zuma, the ANC’s cooperation with the DA in the GNU is the clearest indication that the ANC’s character is changing for the worse. In his mind, this amounts to a neo-liberal conspiracy in which private business interests (or the White Monopoly Capital in earlier terms) “captured” Ramaphosa and the ANC. This, in Zuma’s mind, waters down the values of a national democratic revolution. Zuma believes that black unity (in the form of the progressive caucus plus the ANC) is the preferred direction against the current ANC defection. The first offensive would therefore be against the GNU in its present form.
What is the subtext of these developments?
The Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction, which is associated with Zuma, was effectively removed from the ANC by Ramaphosa. This process included the Zondo Commission’s focus on the Zuma years, the ANC National Conference in 2022 that marginalised KZN by not electing anyone in the Top 7, cabinet changes and new appointments in the criminal justice system, SARS and SOEs that removed Zuma supporters. Zuma’s incarceration was the ultimate public humiliation for KZN and Zuma’s supporters. KZN’s prominence in the ANC also declined when it lost 10% provincial support in the 2019 elections – the same happened in the 2021 local government elections, which meant that Zuma’s power base declined. This indicates a gradual decline in Zuma and Natal’s prominence in the ANC, which is a death knell for Zuma’s legacy.
Zuma’s return to KZN depends on the restoration of the ANC’s power in the province. At the moment, this can only be done by the MKP. The strategy is still unclear, but it certainly includes Zuma retaining his ANC membership. A first logical option would be a reconstituted Natal provincial coalition government between the MKP and ANC that would wipe out the DA’s influence. The common factor between the two parties will be Zuma’s membership of both.
Prof Dirk Kotzé, Department of Political Sciences, Unisa.
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