Mbali Shinga, the KwaZulu-Natal executive council member for social development, recently played a pivotal role in preventing Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe party from seizing control of the provincial legislature by casting a crucial vote against a motion of no confidence. Most people probably don’t know anything about the woman who prevented Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party from taking over KwaZulu-Natal. Mbali Shinga is a former dishwasher who worked her way through the ranks to become a restaurant manager, community worker and entrepreneur.
Now she is the member of the executive council (MEC) for social development in KwaZulu-Natal. Shinga recently spoke to Daily Maverick for an hour and 27 minutes. Eighty minutes into the interview, tears streamed down her cheeks.
Not because she was in the crosshairs of the biggest political party in KZN, or because she has been vilified and threatened. She cried because she missed her mother, who died this year. “I’m not on my own,” she whispered, wiping away her tears with a handkerchief, alluding to her family, friends and her late mother.
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Some days, the grief is heavier than the politics. At times, it has felt like a far bigger challenge than living under a 24-hour police guard and standing up to MK and the president of her own National Freedom Party. Shinga is all that stood between MK and a KZN takeover.
This emerged during a showdown in the provincial legislature on 15 December, when MK tried to pass a motion of no confidence against Premier Thami Ntuli. A single vote foiled it: Shinga’s. On the day, the people of KZN got a taste of their government-in-waiting, and for many, including Shinga, it was horrid.
The belligerence of traditionalists and tenderpreneurs in their bid to wrest control of KZN and its R150-billion-plus budget was foiled. But only after MK members yelled insults (many directed at Shinga), jostled with parliamentary opponents and sprayed water around the legislature. Many felt it was a crass display of might-is-right.
As MK’s MPLs disrupted the sitting, their gleeful party supporters in the public gallery egged them on. Police in numbers eventually outmuscled them and 36 MK MPLs were suspended for disorderly conduct (without pay), though they are contesting this.
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