Panyaza Lesufi has been thrust into the centre of an internal MK Party row in Gauteng, with the MK Party’s provincial secretary accusing “insubordinate” party members of holding secret meetings with the ANC premier.
Mzukisi Ronyuza, in a letter to the party’s national leadership seen by the Sunday Times, says there is an “alarming pattern” of some MK Party legislators in Gauteng “holding unsanctioned meetings with premier Panyaza Lesufi and, by extension, the ANC, without political clearance or accountability”.
The MK Party caucus was instrumental in the installation of Lesufi as premier after the 2024 election and has voted in support of him on several occasions.
Ronyuza told the MK Party leadership that the party’s caucus leader and chief of staff are also at each other’s throats.
Meeting with premier Panyaza Lesufi or ANC officials, without a mandate from the detachment, constitutes an act of organisational insubordination
— Mzukisi Ronyuza
“The 2024 and 2025 budget votes yielded nothing tangible for the MKP, yet the caucus entered these processes from a position of weakness, deliberately excluding the provincial detachment from strategic engagement,” he says in the letter.
“The persistent claim that a ‘mandate was received’, without transparency on who granted it or who is responsible for Gauteng political oversight at national level, is an insult to democratic centralism and organisational integrity.”
Ronyuza said MK Party caucus members appeared to have designated three of their number to form “a special committee ... whose function is to meet with premier Panyaza/ANC, the purpose of which is not known”.
“These are three MPLs led by the party leader. No-one from the detachment knows the programme or the outcome of these meetings. Meeting with premier Panyaza Lesufi or ANC officials, without a mandate from the detachment, constitutes an act of organisational insubordination.”
Asked to comment, Lesufi said: “We value the relationship with all the political parties in the legislature. If there are differences within the parties that we are working with, we are more than willing to engage to clarify those differences, and we don’t want to be antagonistic towards anyone.”
Ronyuza urged the MKP’s national leaders to “decisively intervene” and get everyone to understand the importance of his office as the provincial secretary.
The national leadership needed to “reassert the unquestioned authority of the Gauteng provincial detachment to enforce iron discipline within the provincial caucus” and “assist in exposing and terminating illegitimate ANC arrangements and to reorient the Gauteng MKP caucus towards militant opposition and revolutionary clarity”.
He said Gauteng caucus members should be forced “to submit or share all the agreements made and benefits of voting with ANC during this year’s budget voting”.
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