It’s Zuma’s shop, and he will run it the way he wants

On the eve of Jacob Zuma’s announcement of yet another purge and reshuffle of his uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party, a clip circulated of his warning exactly that. It is not clear when and where the meeting was, but judging by the presence of recently recruited former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede in the front row it must be quite recent.

In the clip, Zuma says: “I did say from the beginning that I do not want any people to be elected because it is a problem. But I left it because the comrades said, ‘Let’s do it’. Now the problem that I was trying avoid is upon us. I wanted to do this alone and [be able to] say ‘you and you and you’, based on my knowledge of them…”

It concludes with Zuma promising that he is going to take matters into his own hands and make the appointments himself.

The context of the speech related to the local government elections nominations process, and heavily contested races for councillor positions and mayoral chains.

But it could well have been in relation to the dictatorial axing and elevation of people in the ranks of the party he launched in December 2016. Zuma has been clear since the beginning that this is his shop and he will run it the way he wants.

When the MK party went into the 2024 elections, it did not have a proper constitution. All that mattered was Zuma was in charge and everybody in the MK party hated Cyril Ramaphosa and wanted to punish the ANC for whatever ills it had brought upon them.

When the party constitution was eventually written and adopted by an unelected executive, it declared that “the president shall have the ultimate power to issue presidential decrees on any matter pertaining to operations, administration and policy direction of the party in the interests of the party…”.

Ironically, one of the first victims of that constitutionally enabled “ultimate power” was none other than the primary drafter of that constitution – a man named Floyd Shivambu.

Zuma has been wielding the axe in his party, unencumbered by the strictures of an African National Congress (ANC) that require the leader to wade through ridiculous processes such as a National Disciplinary Committee, a National Disciplinary Appeals Committee and even the courts if an aggrieved party feels they have not had a fair hearing.

That is why the nation has lost count of the number of secretaries-general and treasurers-general the MK party has had since its formation. The same applies to parliamentary leadership positions and big jobs in the provinces.

Zuma twins — Duduzane and Duduzile

Last week the big axe resulted in what few even within MK party expected: the elevation of Duduzane Zuma to the post of first deputy president of the party. While most party leaders have always been uncomfortable with the outsized role played by Duduzane’s twin sister, Duduzile, they had accepted that she had proximity to her father and that there was little they could do about her power. 

Some did try to whisper in Zuma’s ear about what they regarded as her perverse ways and warned him that she would be the party’s Achilles heel, but this fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, these whispers would end up in Duduzile’s ears, and the whisperer would end up in the political infirmary… or worse.

Then she got drunk on her power and accumulated countless enemies who capitalised on her recklessness and pounced. Her insatiable thirst for power, money and attention became her undoing. 

Having being expelled from the party for “actions and statements that contributed to divisions within the movement and have undermined confidence in the collective leadership of the organisation…”, she now wields no formal power. Her remaining influence can only come from whispering in the ear of her father about those who did bad by her. A mere voice from the grave.

Unrefined in character and raw in ideology, Duduzile’s politics always tended towards the ANC Left, when her father was in the party leadership. What little politics she knew was imbibed by imbibing liquids with the likes of Julius Malema and other ANC Youth League militants. 

Their rhetoric filled in the blank slate that was her political understanding. So she mouthed the right things as she bought political relevance. Radical economic transformation.

We need our land back. Nationalise this and that. Sell-out 1994 deal. Pan-African this. Black this, Black that. Duduzile was schooled okay. When her father booted Malema out of the ANC and he formed the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) she continued her tight friendship with those on the “cold” side of the political spectrum.

Zuma did not seem to mind though, and she is said to have played a key role in the famous tea party that the former president had with Malema as Zuma was amping up his defiance of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture. That conversation was one of many that would be held to try to douse the temperature before his eventual incarceration and the subsequent catastrophic upheavals of July 2021.

Duduzile carried this relationship with Malema into the MK party era, much to the ire of colleagues who viewed the EFF leader with much distrust. This, in turn, led to their distrust of Duduzile. She was increasingly suspected of loosely dangling her tongue in her interaction with EFF friends, considered by many in the MK party as much an enemy as the ANC. This was one of the reasons the knives have been out for her for a long time.

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Duduzane Zuma and his taste for the good life

Into the breach comes her brother, Duduzane. A boy with a taste for the good life, Duduzane’s politics are more barren than his sister’s. In his early adult life he was donated to the Gupta family by his father as part of the State Capture package deal. The Guptas made him artificially rich.

He lived the swanky life, drove the flashy cars and did the Dubai thing that the wealthy folk do. So embedded in that family was he that they even had a say in whom he dated. He was the Zuma in the Gupta enterprise matrix, featuring in the organograms of their businesses. Politics was the furthest thing from his mind, naively describing himself as a “businessman” as he was paraded around by his adoptive family.

While he got artificially rich, they became truly wealthy from the State Capture project. Today neither he nor his father have much to show for their sacrifice for the Guptas. When the family bolted from the country with stacks of cash on private jets, the Zumas were left with chump change.

Duduzane retreated into the background while his more ebullient sister became a familiar face in the so-called Radical Economic Transformation movement. His brief foray into politics was as elected chair of the ANC branch in the Durban township of Newlands East, his wife’s hood.

This, he said, was his stepping stone to the country’s presidency. In the life of the MK party, he has been very much in the shadows, making only the obligatory appearance at high-profile events. Duduzile, on the other hand, was always in the front row. She was by her father’s side at rallies, press conferences and court appearances and made a point of being close to the power in the party.

Behind the scenes she bullied colleagues and put them in their place. She tightly controlled access to Zuma, thereby ensuring that anything about her shenanigans could either be intercepted or quickly dispelled. In the world of dynasties, she was the obvious heir. 

But it is Duduzane who stands to inherit the kingdom. In reading the son’s elevation, we must understand that the MK party is just as much about Zuma’s insurance against incarceration as it is about money.

From his 1990s dalliances with an array of shady businessmen to his entanglement with Schabir Shaik and arms dealers to his selling the country to the Guptas, Zuma’s relationship with money has been his defining feature. For various reasons, Zuma has been a magnet for dodgy domestic and foreign money.

But because of the chaotic nature of the MK party and the manner in which Zuma runs it, the cash has found a way of reaching many different pockets. Hence the endless power struggles and Zuma’s seemingly inexplicable need to do constant reshuffles. Even he can’t control the flows.

Duduzane to guard Zuma family interests

At some point he believed he could trust his daughter to keep an eye on the jackals but even that turned out to be naive. In Duduzane, he sees the safest pair of hands to safeguard the family interest.

The fact that the party’s finances, among other responsibilities, have been centralised in the presidency that will be run by the father and son together with second deputy president Tony Yengeni, says a lot. Yengeni, an ANC veteran, will likely be given greater rein over the political terrain while the money will be controlled by the household.

The tricky part though is that while Duduzane may be able to keep an eye on things, he is a lightweight in a field of experienced players. His only power is that he is daddy’s boy and that can only go so far. He cannot just be his father’s eyes; he also has to be his enforcer.

MK party and coming elections

A big question is whether all this chaos, dictatorship and brazen nepotism will have any negative impact on the party’s prospects in the November local government election. The answer, strangely, is a firm no. For now, the pull of Jacob Zuma and growing disdain for the ANC far outweigh any negative fall-out.

A great outing in KwaZulu-Natal, two of the Gauteng metros and parts of Mpumalanga can still be expected. It can be argued that if it were not for all the mayhem, an even better outing could have been on the cards.

And Zuma will feel vindicated that his dictatorship works for the party. But just how sustainable is it for a party that has its eyes on the bigger prize in 2029? DM