Makhosi Khoza has been at odds with the ANC before when, in 2012, she resigned as the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature following her “redeployment” as chief whip. Even the Democratic Alliance bemoaned the loss.

Two years later the ANC member was convinced by some in Luthuli House to return as a public office bearer in the National Assembly. With her PhD in Administration, a Master’s Degree in Social Science (policy and development studies) and 20 years of work experience in the public and private sectors, her deployment had perhaps more to do with her skill than her political following. She’s more administrator than politician.

The events leading to her resignation yesterday are well-documented, with the final straw perhaps having been a disciplinary process brought against her by the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal following her outspoken stance against President Jacob Zuma’s continued leadership.

She was accused of bringing the party into disrepute by criticising Zuma in public and supporting calls (mainly from the opposition) for him to be removed.

She called on Zuma to step down before the motion of confidence against him, where a number of ANC MPs voted against him too.

Following this, she was removed from her position as chairperson of the parliamentary portfolio committee on public service and administration after five ANC MPs boycotted a meeting where she’d have chaired.

She faced threats against her life and those of her children.

The ANC caucus said in a statement at the time there was an “erosion of trust in her as chairperson” which also led to “acrimonious verbal exchanges between her and members of the study group in meetings and on social media”. Khoza, it seems, just didn’t want to shut up.

Her reasons for leaving the ANC are well-documented. The party had changed in character, was protecting the corrupt, and disregarded people, was the gist of what she said about it. The ANC also “does not value nor respect intellectual women”, subjecting them to “consistent condescension, ridicule and contempt,” she said.

On a personal level she felt persecuted and the environment she was working in must have become intolerable.

Khoza consulted some ANC elders “in order to make an informed decision as to how to proceed”. In her statement she named Mama Gertrude Shope, an ANC and ANC Women’s League stalwart whose daughter, Lyndall Shope-Mafole was one of the founding members of the ANC splinter, Cope.

There were others too, which she didn’t name, and who were of the same mind as her about the ANC. One or two of them could follow her out as happened in the days of Cope, but the majority are unlikely to.

So why did she leave the party now, specifically? Her timing seems odd.

Some remarked that her announcement co-incided with the ninth anniversary of former president Thabo Mbeki’s resignation as president, but despite mentioning him as one of the people she wanted to consult, this didn’t come up in her statement.

Perhaps it could be that she wanted to resign earlier, to co-incide with the first sitting of her disciplinary hearing on 10 September. The hearing ended up being postponed and that same week the court ruled that the 2015 conference which elected the leadership that called for this disciplinary was unlawful and void. Resigning now meant giving the disciplinary committee an easy opt-out, although, conversely, should they have found a way to continue with the charges against her, Khoza didn’t offer them the possible satisfaction of suspending her.

On the other hand, those in the ANC love an underdog and this would have made her a kind of martyr, and she could have sat out her suspension and plotted a return to leadership structures in the party at a later time. Khoza is only 48, after all.

Her resignation also comes ahead of the party’s December elective conference, which could see Zuma’s grip on the party loosen slightly (he’s not standing for re-election, which means dynamics are bound to change even with his preferred successor, ANC MP Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at the helm).

Should the disciplinary against her have gone pear-shaped, she might even have had a chance of making the national executive committee in December.

Perhaps she intended to do some damage to the party – and the Zuma-supporting faction in particular – as the run-up to the conference sees it divided, with comrade pitted against comrade. The reality is, however, that her statement might carry for a few days and even into the Sunday papers over the weekend, but it’s likely to get lost in the din of the succession battle thereafter. Staying in the party would have given her story traction for a bit longer, and done perhaps more damage.

Perhaps the death of ANC councillor Sindiso Magaqa two months after he survived a hail of bullets in what appeared to have been a political assassination attempt was a wake-up call. Her safety was of great concern and one of the reasons why she reached out on social media.

There was talk of her wanting to start her own party, something she is said to have given serious consideration.

Why, however, when being in Parliament amongst ANC caucus members who showed her disdain, would she want to return to the national legislature?

Should she go ahead with a new party, she also runs the danger of becoming another Cope, which has seen declining electoral support after a reasonable showing in the 2009 general elections, or an Agang, Mamphela Ramphela’s start-up which was a bit of a non-starter when only two of its representatives got into Parliament and Ramphela herself soon lost interest.

Unlike Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema, she doesn’t have significant support in her home province, and she hasn’t, like him, tapped into the considerable feeling amongst many young people of having been disregarded, even condemned.

Still, it appears some of the same people behind Cope and Agang might have identified Khoza as the third time lucky leader to fill a gap in the party political landscape: She is an educated, young, strong, middle-class woman from Zuma’s heartland of KwaZulu-Natal, with liberation movement credentials and committed to clean governance.

A new party could have help chip away at the ANC’s majority just as Cope, Agang and the EFF have done, and might help knock it out in 2019. Ultimately, on a personal level, this kind of politics have eventually chewed and spat out many of the individuals who invested hope and energy into these parties.

Khoza herself, who was a darling while voicing the concerns of the middle-classes from her warm seat within the ANC, could find it cold outside the party in ways she wouldn’t have imagined.

Having left the party, she is now an ex, no more special than the likes of, say, Malema, Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota, or Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane.

Criticism against the ANC from within the ANC is still the most powerful. The chattering classes have by now realised that, for now, it’s only the governing party that could make or unseat a president – especially someone like Zuma. It’s the ANC that will eventually destroy the ANC, more than anything else.

Outside the ANC, Khoza’s words will therefore lose some of their punch. She might find her social media inboxes becoming a considerably more quiet in a week or two.

Khoza did hint that she might become involved in some of the social movements, like Section 27, which have in the past few years spoken out against corruption – and Zuma’s rule.

Perhaps she could consider returning to academia, which she left for politics in 2014.

Either way, she’d hope to find more purpose in life than to “tap dance with the deadly, greedy hyenas and wolves,” as she put it. DM

Photo: Makhosi Khoza (GCIS)