Since MKP’s Historic 2024 Victory, The Party Keeps Losing Leaders | #91

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]MK party, they have really strong faith [clears throat] in Jacob Zuma. Hence, electorally they did really well. They were the highlight of the general elections in 2024. But, it does seem it does appear as an outsider now looking into the situation that there are some serious serious institutional challenges within the organization. The exodus of top leaders within the party can't be a good sign. In just 2 years of existing rather run about 2 years, the party has already seen a splinter in the form of the My Vote Africa Party, which was formed by Phil Chivambu.

[00:00:39]So, in this video I want us to look at the shifts in the leadership in the MKP.

[00:00:44]And I also just want to speak a bit on the most important aspect that I guess is important to just highlight that if the the MK party eventually does cease to exist because at this moment the signs are not looking good. If eventually does lead to that, we are talking about 2.3 million voters that voted in support of MKP. We're looking at 58 parliamentary seats. Mostly the voters here are black male rural voters.

[00:01:14]These guys are up for grabs.

[00:01:18]So, yeah, the exodus in no particular order, right? We have some names here.

[00:01:24]Starting off with Jabulani Khumalo who really really kicked off the the drama around MK party. He was expelled after the the leadership dispute of Jacob Zuma. Phil Chivambu who made the biggest headline. There was a lot of noise here at the time when he left in the party.

[00:01:41]His role was SG removed and dismissed.

[00:01:44]Collen Makhubela, Sihle Ngubane, Nhlakanipho Ndlela who is well, the latest. Of course, Nhlakanipho as well as Papa Penny are all in the last week, right?

[00:01:52]Nhlakanipho Ndlela was removed from parliament, later suspended. Papa Penny became associated growing dissatisfaction and then now he's jumped over to African Mayibuye. You've got Mary Phaahla who was also very outspoken from the Mpumalanga region he's suspended. John Block suspended. Duduza uh Sambudla who is the daughter of Jacob Zuma she resigned after her own issues with this Russia story.

[00:02:21]Willies Mchunu, Edward Bongani Mngwango um and these are top leaders, right? Essentially these are top leaders. You have a couple of SG's here.

[00:02:33]You've got a national spokesperson. A provincial organizer and leader, parliamentary leader in the case of John Block, right? And you know, when senior leaders move like this, it's not it's not a simple thing, right? Senior leaders are moving away with intel.

[00:02:49]They're moving away with, you know, there's a there's going to be a gap in the organization because senior leadership, right? They're part of the infrastructure. They build the organization, right? Decisions are made by these guys. They sign off on things.

[00:03:03]And often if a leader a senior member of an organization moves, they move with a couple of people, right? Like we saw with Fikile Mbalula when he moved over to uh what's this thing? African Mayibuye, there were some ladies that were following him as as well. So, hence I'm saying looking at this picture and I don't even know if this is everyone. I mean, this is just from a quick Google search. There could be other people that I missed cuz I'm not paying close attention, but this again is signaling that there's a huge problem. Which then means, right? Now getting to my commentary, that 2.3 million predominantly male, predominantly black, coming from rural KZN these guys are up for grabs when eventually this ship sinks. And by the looks of things, there are quite a number of people who won't mind when eventually this ship sinks, right? If you look at number of people that have been suspended, expelled, they'll probably have a a mini celebration. And on this on this very point, I tend to agree with this article here from EWN, where basically this article is speaking about the fact that attributing the support that Jacob Zuma through the MK party received just to tribalism is simplistic. I agree with this take because if indeed the support that MK party got was simply based on tribal ties, the IFP got a which is you know, mostly associated with the KZN base, with the male KZN Zulu base, why didn't they do the same? In fact, they've never hit these records as what we saw with MK with We Sizwe party. They would be much more popular if the theory that well, it's based on tribal ties really really was the reason. And it's also got to and some people would even argue that well, if it's not based on tribal, the reason why MK party got so much support is because of like the Zuma flavor. The Zuma magic, people call him a strategic, they call him a chess player, Zuma knows how to hit the notes and and and and and that's also the perspective that there is there are people that hold that view that MK party sits with 2.3 million, which is what 15% of the vote share because of the Zuma magic, right? And both theories I dismiss. I dismiss it. I dismiss the tribal and I dismiss the Zuma the Zuma magic, right? And it's quite a some some way to understand this, right? Because what's actually happening here, guys, is that Jacob Zuma, which something that is easy to miss, but if you actually listen to what his supporters are saying, Jacob Zuma to many people is seen as a shield away from the reality that we are dealing with here in South Africa, right? What do I mean by that? When you listen to people, in my own family, I would say this, guys, what I tend to hear, especially family members that work for the government, they tend to say things like when Jacob Zuma was in power, we that was the last time we saw a substantial decent increase in our salaries. When Jacob Zuma was in power, medical aid covered X and you know, things like that. People say these things, right? When Jacob Zuma was in power, there was a broad understanding that there were opportunities, that there was access, right? Cuz we spoken about what tenders mean to many people, especially black people. Tenders mean access, access to money, access to be able to run your business and and and and and because, you know, obviously coming from our history and so forth, people have affiliation to things like BEE because it's seen as access. When you work for the government, you were seen to be taken care of. You had your benefits, you got your decent increase, and who knows, maybe even a bonus on top of that.

[00:06:36]When you were working for the government through tenders, it looked like there was just plenty to go around, right? So, that's the general perception. Zuma is the image of of Zuma is seen as this is the one person who is going to give us a break from this reality, which of course many of us know that reality is a very difficult thing to face. It's hard. Reality is a hard, it's not easy to face reality.

[00:07:03]Hence again, when people speak about Zuma, they speak in light of we had opportunities, things were looking good, right? Which is the total opposite of what we seeing today. Total opposite of today's picture. Today, people are dealing with high cost of living. People are dealing with a lot of problems. You know, even if electricity, of course we don't have load shedding and we bless the Lord for that. Thank you very much.

[00:07:26]Congratulations to whoever made it happen.

[00:07:28]But even with electricity, the cost of it is now people are probably thinking, "I mean, do I even need to put my lights on in the evening? Can't I just use a torch from my mobile device because of how expensive it is?" You know, I've spoken to family and friends. People are even thinking twice about heaters, never mind electric blankets, because of just how it hit the pocket. The cost of living, the cost of electricity, you've got kids. Your kids now Zuma days your kids are 2 years, 3 years, they were so cute, you know, they didn't really need a lot.

[00:08:00]Now, they need to go to varsity. Now they are teenagers. They've got issues.

[00:08:04]They've got this, they need this. So, all of these things now reality is hitting and reality this very difficult thing to solve. It's a difficult thing to accept. So, that's exactly where Zuma fits in. And by the way, he also knows how to play to this, you know, this idea. I think maybe at some point he didn't quite understand what the hell is going on. What's going on? What's this power that I tend to have? And I'm sure he quickly realized, "Oh, well, people just believe that I can make things happen." You know, he's not very present, he's not very active in the public space. He's old, he's probably half the time he's laying in bed trying to recover from something.

[00:08:41]But, even with that, even without campaigns and all of these things, his organization is not They don't even have a single municipality, but still people give him support. He still hits the numbers in the by-elections. Because again, the image of Jacob Zuma is associated with that time when things were going well. And that becomes the mandate, a very very difficult mandate, right? For anyone outside of the MK party who's saying, "Well, I want to take advantage of these two or or so million voters, right? And scoop them over for my party." That's the the the mandate, right? That's a competition to win people over who have associated Jacob Zuma as the gateway, right? And now, how do you capture this crowd? How do you win over these people? My perspective, very practical, is one, you need to understand what what is a problem for these people. If you have to list it to maybe top three of the most important issues, that's a good starting point. Number two, once you know what it is that these guys care about the most, you need to present your plan in terms of how you are going to address these problems. Present your plan. I spoke about KZN, it has to be in isiZulu, right? Because this is an isiZulu speaking base.

[00:09:57]Tap into that. Speak isiZulu, Ukhozi FM, those are the play places where you can talk to these guys. TikTok is another one. These guys are on TikTok on a regular basis putting out of their videos and their views. Go on that platform, speak in their language, address the problems that they are facing. The top three problems, narrow it down and give them your plan, a concrete solid plan, because you know, even if about Jacob Zuma right now can be big and popular and all of that, eventually the ship is going to sink.

[00:10:28]The ANC is already out the door, people don't trust them. uZuma-N is going to follow because clearly there's a lot of institutional issues in the internal structure of the MKP. uMalema has pissed them off already. People in KZN don't want to hear about Malema at all. So, there is a gap. I see the guys about ActionSA, IFP, IFP, ActionSA, yeah, those are the guys that should really be trying to take over this particular constituency. But I'm going to park it here for this video. Before you go, please make sure that you like this video and subscribe if you haven't done so already. Until the next time.