The odds against the Third Coming of Jacob Zuma are stacking up 

A series of public comments by uMkhonto Wesize (MK) party leader, former president Jacob Zuma, and the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema, reveals how poisonous the relationship between them has become. 

Despite this acrimony, both appear to want to lead a “black unity” party as part of a campaign against the ANC’s current leadership under President Cyril Ramaphosa. 

These attempts are doomed to failure, largely because Zuma has failed to build sustainable structures in his new party. And although Malema built membership and leadership structures that led to the EFF’s steady growth into the third-largest party in 2019, its massive loss in support to the MK party in the 2024 elections followed by the exodus of prominent EFF members to the MK party after the departure of EFF co-founder and deputy Floyd Shivambu, exposed deep cracks in the party’s structures.

Over the last few days there has been much reporting about a podcast interview with Zuma published by the Sunday Times, in which he responded to his expulsion from the ANC.

He clearly still does not accept the authority of the ANC’s current leadership to remove him. And in fact, he does not appear to accept our democracy is a true democracy. 

This has led to some public derision, particularly as Zuma regularly described South Africa as a democracy when he was our elected head of state, as TimesLive columnist Tom Eaton pointed out.

Within all of this has been much discussion about how Zuma would like to lead a “black unity” party. In his interview, he refers to gatherings, saying that “when we were establishing the MK party – we met as black parties – and agreed we were going to take over … it’s something that happened”.

Dali Mpofu referred to this idea many times during his interviews after he moved from the EFF to MK, suggesting at one point that he could, in his heart, be a member of the ANC, of the EFF and of the MK party all at the same time.

But there must be something inherently wrong with the idea that people will, or must, vote for a particular party because of their race. 

While our racialised inequality means that race is often an important element of many people’s political choices, the very idea that all black people would agree to support one party simply because of their racial identity might remind many people of our apartheid past.

Even if Zuma did seriously believe this, then surely, he would have to concede that the ANC, as weak as it is at present, would still fit the definition of a “black unity” party better than any other formation in our political history.

This may reveal that in fact this entire issue is just dog-whistle politics. It is about trying to claim that opposing Cyril Ramaphosa is opposing whiteness (there is a long history to this; Robert Mugabe once referred to Ramaphosa as a “white man in a black man’s skin”, in an attempt to find the most pointed political insult possible for Ramaphosa’s failure to silence newspapers that had criticised the detention and torture of two Zimbabwean journalists, when he was chairperson of Johnnic Holdings).

Fractured politics

In some ways this entire issue is irrelevant anyway, simply because of the way our politics has been fracturing. As has been observed many times on these pages, this process currently appears unstoppable.

It can sometimes be forgotten amid the short-term news flow around personalities that this is the real dynamic that is driving our politics.

This is because one movement that tried to represent everyone, as noble as it was, was in some ways artificial. It was always a response first to colonialism and then to apartheid. Now the real nature of our society, its true diversity, is being revealed in our politics. Hence the formation of so many smaller parties.

The MK party is a good example of this. The fact its leader is from KwaZulu-Natal, that he won significant support for the ANC there in 2009 and 2014, and then so many votes for the MK party in KwaZulu-Natal this election, is just one manifestation of this fracturing.

This also reveals important limitations for the MK party, it won very little support outside KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga. Zuma would have to reach out to other groups, something he has shown very little appetite for.

Besides, any attempt to overcome this process would require Malema and Zuma being able to work together.

In the last few days Malema has said: “We are not going to sell the future generation for the dreams of an 81-year-old man who is corrupt to the core.” On Tuesday, outside the Constitutional Court he said: “We have age on our side, and if Zuma even dies tomorrow we will fight him from his grave.”

Any rapprochement would appear unlikely.

But it should also put to bed what were always nonsensical ideas that Malema was using Floyd Shivambu’s defection to “take over” the MK party. This was never the case, it was always about the break-up of the relationship between Malema and Shivambu.

In recent days there have even been suggestions that Zuma could, somehow, become president again, through a back-door takeover of the ANC, or through that party’s electoral collapse.

Some of this may have been influenced by the reelection of Donald Trump as US president.

But this idea fails to consider the real weaknesses of the MK party and Zuma.

Zuma has still failed to create proper durable structures. Some of the positions in the party, such as secretary-general (now occupied by Shivambu), have been revolving doors. Literally every weekend comes with news about a new person occupying a top position.

But Zuma’s major weakness is one he shares with Malema; both have deliberately refused to allow true democracy to operate in their parties.

For Malema, the chickens have now come home to roost; this is a big reason why his party is losing momentum.

For Zuma, this means that creating structures that will be able to campaign outside KwaZulu-Natal will be nearly impossible. Who is going to volunteer to do the hard work of creating MK party structures in Kuruman if they can be removed just because Zuma now says so?

Of course, it is true that the ANC break-up has some way to go. And that it could still lose more support to the MK party in the local elections.

But to suggest that if you discount Zuma’s “running the country again, your bespoke reality has grown dangerously impermeable. And you’re in for a nasty surprise” may well be missing the real complexity of the situation.

Yes, our politics can produce shocks. And the MK party’s 14% of the vote in May was one of those. But Zuma’s own weaknesses and choice of strategy, and other personal factors, make it almost impossible for him to again win mass support across the country. DM