Mk party members clash with police in the KZN legislature, 15 December. Picture: Gallo Images/Darren Stewart Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party sought to celebrate its second birthday by targeting KwaZulu-Natal premier Thami Ntuli in a no-confidence motion, but failed to garner sufficient support for the vote. An expert believes that for the party to resort to violence to get what it wants in the legislature could become its undoing as South African voters are wary of violent parties.
The party, said political economy analyst Daniel Silke, needs to learn from the EFF, which lost electoral support due to its violent tactics. Drama unfolded in the KZN provincial legislature on Monday when MK resorted to EFF-style parliamentary chaos: banging on tables, shouting and physically confronting the police who were present to maintain order in the chamber. Silke said violence of this nature would not help MK, as voters disapproved of such behaviour, as the EFF had discovered.
“MK’s action will have set them back in a sense in terms of trying to establish the party as some kind of credible alternative governing force within KZN. “MK’s credibility will take a knock as a result of its actions on Monday, but that will not take the drift away from the ANC, which continues to lose support as well. “All of this along with potential fragmentation among parties and voters will create an unstable situation in KZN,” Silke said.
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MK submitted a motion of no confidence against Ntuli, but the ANC, DA, IFP and the National Freedom Party (NFP) voted to allow Ntuli to remain as premier. The EFF was the only party to back MK’s motion, despite their ongoing political rivalry stemming from the defections earlier this year of EFF members to MK. The EFF defectors included former MK secretary-general Floyd Shivambu, who has since quit MK to establish his own party, Afrika Mayibuye Movement.
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