Former president Jacob Zuma made a veiled attack on ousted MK Party founder Jabulani Khumalo yesterday, warning that greed must not be allowed to torpedo the party in the days before the elections.
“We are a three-month old party but external forces have caused so much infighting within us over small matters like positions,” Zuma told a prayer service organised by the party’s religious wing, the MK Interfaith, in Greyville, Durban.
“We only have two weeks to the elections but we might fail to use this opportunity to unite and reclaim our country because of greed over positions.”
Zuma said this attitude made him “sick” and urged supporters to unite against dissidents.
He did not single out Khumalo by name but cited “a black man” who was “even approaching courts complaining that ‘Zuma has expelled me out of my own party’”.
Khumalo and four other members were expelled from the party last month on suspicion that they are working with “external forces” to destabilise the party. Khumalo was said to have received bribes and cars from the ANC.
Refusing to accept his expulsion, he retaliated this week by suspending Zuma in turn and asked the Electoral Commission (IEC) to remove him from the MK Party list of parliamentary candidates.
Khumalo submitted a court affidavit this week saying he had not sent the letter received by the IEC in which he supposedly resigned as leader of the MK Party. He accused Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, of either forging his signature herself or knowing who was behind it.
Zuma told about 150 people of various faiths, including Christians, Hindu and traditional leaders, that he was “really troubled by this show of disunity” on the part of members who were fighting over positions and expressing discontent at being left off the candidates list.
He said he had intentionally called for the party to have interim structures until after the elections to try to avoid conflict.
“The reason I decided that we will have interim structures until after elections was because I knew there would be infighting over positions … That’s the first task I gave comrades to prevent this thing of fighting for positions, but they have disappointed me. And that fighting is getting worse the closer we get to elections.”
Zuma, who arrived three hours late, was in his usual charismatic form, cracking jokes and dancing to uMshini wami.
Some members of the MK Interfaith group told the Sunday Times that Khumalo had been “captured” by the ANC to destroy the MK Party from within.
Pastor Muntuza Majola, the group’s co-ordinator in KwaZulu-Natal, likened Khumalo’s actions to that of a child who refuses to be disciplined at home and throws tantrums.
“We’re people of faith and we're here to pray for situations like those: to pray for the truth. To pray against the plans to shake the party from the within: against the instigators and those who are planted, whether they exist or not. We’re here to pray for those plans to falter before they even take shape.”
Archbishop Professor TB Ngcobo said: “He [Khumalo] had a golden opportunity to be the second-in-command after Zuma and threw it away by allowing money to be used to convince him to sell the MK to the opposition. He enriched himself, using the organisation, while we’re battling on the ground to fund the campaign. The ANC is trying by all means to infiltrate the MK party.”
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