uMkhonto weSizwe Party
- Also known as:
- MK Party
- Related People:
- Jacob Zuma
uMkhonto weSizwe Party, South African political party formed in 2023. It is commonly referred to as the MK Party. The party takes its name from Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), the apartheid-era military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement and, later, political party. Former South African president and ANC stalwart Jacob Zuma is the head of the MK Party. The party began contesting by-elections in early 2024 and participated in the country’s national and provincial elections on May 29, 2024.
Origin, leadership, manifesto, and performance
The MK Party quietly entered the political scene in the summer of 2023 and was officially registered with South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on September 7, 2023, by Jabulani Khumalo, the party’s founder. In mid-December, however, the notoriety of the MK Party skyrocketed when Zuma declared that he would support the party in the 2024 elections. Zuma’s announcement was made at the party’s official launch on December 16, 2023, which was also the anniversary of the original MK military group’s formal declaration of war on the Republic of South Africa in 1961. The party claimed to gain one million new members in the two days following the launch. Zuma’s support for the new party raised eyebrows, as he was still a member of the ANC. The ANC also took issue with the party’s use of the MK logo and name and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Khumalo that month.
The MK Party’s manifesto identified what the party thought were the country’s most significant challenges, which included inadequate access to health care and quality education, economic inequality, inequitable land distribution, and national security threats. It cited the need for robust traditional leadership and foreign policies and committed to enacting transformative change. The party’s message appeared to resonate with some South Africans, as it performed well in a few by-elections held in February 2024 in KwaZulu-Natal, its stronghold, and in the neighboring province of Mpumalanga, capturing a portion of the vote from established parties like the ANC, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). The ANC in particular appeared to be in danger of losing a portion of its voter base to the MK Party in the upcoming national election, potentially jeopardizing the ANC’s ability to win a majority in the National Assembly and secure another term for Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa, who had succeeded Zuma as president after the latter was pressured to resign in 2018.
Zuma, meanwhile, appeared to be poised to play a larger role with the party beyond simply supporting it; a candidate list submitted to the IEC and leaked on social media in March 2024 showed that he was at the top of the list of the party’s parliamentary candidates. On April 16 the IEC confirmed that the MK Party had listed Zuma, instead of Khumalo, as its leader. Ten days later the party’s leadership core expelled Khumalo and four others from the party, calling them “rogue elements” and stating that the expulsions occurred as the party “continues to cleanse itself.”
Legal issues
The nascent party faced legal challenges from the ANC, which questioned the legitimacy of the party’s registration with the IEC over a procedural matter. On March 26, however, the Electoral Court ruled in favor of the MK Party. In March the ANC also sought a court order from the High Court in Durban to stop the MK Party’s use of the MK name and logo, but on April 22 the court dismissed the case, which allowed the MK Party to continue its use.
The party also faced legal fights about the validity of Zuma’s candidacy. On March 28 the IEC confirmed that an objection to Zuma’s candidacy had been raised over his 15-month jail sentence, which had been handed down in June 2021 for contempt of court during a corruption hearing. (He actually served very little time in prison—he was released on medical parole soon after sentencing and was one of several thousand nonviolent offenders whose sentences were remitted in August 2023 to alleviate crowded jails.) The constitution states that any person convicted of an offense and sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine was not eligible to serve in the National Assembly until five years after the sentence had been completed. The IEC agreed that Zuma was ineligible, and he was barred from standing in the election. The MK Party appealed the decision in the Electoral Court, which on April 9 overturned the IEC’s decision without stating a reason. The IEC responded by asking the Electoral Court for its rationale. It also lodged an “urgent and direct appeal” to the Constitutional Court for legal clarity regarding the validity of Zuma’s candidacy; the court’s ruling, issued on May 20, agreed that Zuma would not be eligible to serve in the National Assembly until five years after his sentence had been completed. Therefore, he was barred from standing in the upcoming election on May 29. The MK Party was disappointed with the ruling, but affirmed that Zuma was still the party’s leader and that the party would continue to campaign.
Meanwhile, in late April an alarming allegation came to light concerning the voter signatures on nomination paperwork that had been submitted to the IEC in order to qualify the MK Party to participate in the May 2024 election. Lennox Ntsodo, a former senior MK Party member, confessed to having overseen a team that gathered voters’ names and details from various databases and then forged their signatures in order to ensure that the MK Party had enough signatures on nomination paperwork; MK Party leadership, however, disavowed any knowledge of forgery. The IEC noted that a criminal complaint about the alleged forgeries had been filed with the South African Police Service and urged the police to expedite the investigation of the claim which, if proved true, would affect the legitimacy of the upcoming election.
The 2024 elections
The MK Party performed well in the May 29 national election, winning more than 14 percent of the vote and placing third behind the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA). However, the party challenged the results, claiming it had actually won a far greater percentage of the vote, and accused the IEC of having committed electoral fraud, though they did not provide evidence in support of its claims. The MK Party tried to get the Constitutional Court to block the first seating of the National Assembly on June 14, as well as to overturn the election results, but the party’s application was dismissed as being without merit. The party then boycotted the June 14 session, but days later announced that its parliamentarians would take their seats in the National Assembly and join the Progressive Caucus group of political parties, as opposed to the government of national unity (GNU) that the ANC had opted to form after failing to win a majority of the vote. The MK parliamentarians were sworn in on June 25.