Political analyst Sandile Swana has dismissed the Umkhonto weSizwe Party’s (MK Party’s) claims of stability as “serious denial”, arguing that the party’s frequent leadership changes and public infighting point to fundamental instability within the organisation.
Swana’s assessment comes as MK Party secretary-general Sibonelo Nomvalo insists that the party’s rapid turnover in senior positions is a sign of “political agility” rather than disarray.
Nomvalo recently told journalists that he believes that it is unfair to characterise the party as unstable simply because of the leadership changes.
Instead, the newly appointed party boss said he does not understand people who would want to characterise the party as unstable.
“We are making rapid changes of leadership. This is a new formation, which has political agility, which is inevitable because of its age. We are a young organisation, we are less than three years [old].
“Constant changes are inevitable because from time to time, we test characters for different responsibilities, and we say maybe this character can help us to achieve this objective. And if we realise that this character, because we are still to study different modalities towards achieving a united and disciplined force of the left, does not take us to where we want to be, we make changes and there is nothing wrong.”
Nomvalo questioned where the perception of instability stems from, saying there is no evidence for the claims.
“You are very narrow when you want to characterise the party as being unstable if you are using this thing of changing leadership as a yardstick. You must go beyond, go to parliament committees and see the participation of our comrades there and tell me if comrades with that capacity can be coming from an organisation which suffers from instability.”
However, Swana dismissed these assertions, claiming that the party was in serious denial.
He referred to the two-time dismissal of former chief whip Colleen Makhubele as a serious red flag, affirming these instability claims.
“In the National Assembly, it is not quite correct that they have been stable. Colleen Makhubele has been fired twice, once by former judge John Hlophe and secondly by the party. That cannot possibly be a sign of stability.
“Even Hlophe was suspended, but the decision that he had made in fact was then confirmed to be correct. He is a very experienced person, and senior, so you cannot paint his decisions lightly. Regardless of his moral failures, which were driven by his loyalty to Zuma, we must not think that he does not have that legal mind to make such decisions.”
Swana said the party has not demonstrated exemplary standards of stability.
“In KwaZulu-Natal, there have been big fights even about monies and budgets in their own structures, including over the monies of people in their own constituencies. In Mpumalanga, there was total chaos in the fight against Mary Phadi and Busisiwe Mkhwebane. ”
The political analyst claimed the MK Party trajectory should not be alarming to the public, calling the notion of musical chairs synonymous with Jacob Zuma’s leadership.
“He had told us that the MK Party is not going to work like other parties, saying, ‘akafakwa umuntu esingamazi la [we don’t involve anyone we don’t know here].’ Zuma has gotten rid of people he told us were politically clear, like Floyd Shivambu.
“In each position, if I am being modest, there has at least been four people in each one of these senior positions interchangeably. If you go into the Zuma presidency, the amount of vacancies that he created frequently were significant, even in the public service with deputy directors and deputy directors-general.
“Part of the rebuilding of the capacity of the state is the capacity of the offices, which were left empty. Zuma will tell you that this was stability, and we must accept it. In objectively measuring how a normal human, social institution could run, there is no stability that you can associate Zuma with. Similar to his cabinet reshuffles, this is synonymous with him.”
Nomvalo dismissed claims that the MK Party is a regional party, saying it is not a KZN party with no positive prospects at making significant electoral inroads across the rest of the country.
We can take our rallies to the Eastern Cape and our stadiums will be full.
— Sibonelo Nomvalo, MK Party secretary-general
“That narrative can only be proven by people who are allergic to thinking and who are lazy to do a proper assessment and investigation. It comes from people who have political interests.”
The secretary-general stated that by virtue of the party having eight members of the provincial legislature (MPLs) in Gauteng, one in North West and some in Mpumalanga, this ought to prove that it has a national footprint.
“Remember that this party was formed on the eve of elections, when we were left with five months to go before elections. That is why we are saying, when we were dissecting the shortcomings that are currently affecting the party, we said such shortcomings are inevitable because our party had no time to do a thorough assessment during its inception because we were faced with elections. The fact that we had a two-fold assignment from the word go.
“The first assignment was to build a party from inception, the second assignment was to oil the election machinery. So this narrative, I don’t know where it comes from. We are a national party and maybe we must demonstrate our national footprint by taking our rallies to other provinces, which we can do with ease.
“We can take our rallies to the Eastern Cape and our stadiums will be full. It is a non-existent narrative which is being owned by thinkers who are lazy to do research, and it comes from political illiteracy and does not disturb our morale.”
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