Nine years ago, then president Jacob Zuma invited editors and senior reporters of the mainstream media to a lunch “engagement” at the Sefako Makgatho presidential guesthouse in Pretoria. As he walked into the dining area, he enquired about “the table of the Sunday Crimes”. For about an hour, he complained to this newspaper’s then editors about how we were reporting about him — “especially Mondli Makhanya and that Hogarth”.
The editors had to point out to him that Makhanya had long departed as editor and columnist and that Hogarth was merely a satirical column. But Zuma would have none of it — telling the editors he would not grant the Sunday Times interviews until the paper changed its attitude towards him. In subsequent years, his attitude was to harden even further as the newspaper became among the first to report on the state capture saga — including a trail of leaked emails that exposed Zuma’s relationship with the Guptas.
But that was then and so much water has since flowed under the bridge — culminating in Zuma being removed from office and later announcing he was forming his own political party to compete with the ANC. So after more than a decade of being rebuffed in its requests for interviews, the Sunday Times tried again earlier in November.
His MK Party tentatively agreed, saying Zuma would have to first give the go-ahead. When confirmation finally came through, the details were sketchy — come to Durban on Tuesday or Wednesday, time and venue to be confirmed on the day. Even though the meeting’s co-ordinator was trustworthy, the arrangement was nonetheless risky as the former president is legendary for changing his itinerary at short notice.
He presents himself as a new people’s hero who will all of a sudden liberate all. I’m tempted to interject to remind him that he was once president but it will only degenerate into a back and forth argument
Luckily, Tuesday was not one of those days. Be ready between noon and 1pm, we are told, the Beverly Hills Hotel in Umhlanga is the venue.
Just after 1pm, MK Party secretary-general Floyd Shivambu tells us to set up our equipment in the boardroom on the first floor. Just when we indicate we are ready to roll the cameras, another group of party leaders, including spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela, shows up and demands the erection of banners so that the interview “does not look Mickey Mouse” — which means another wait. So they bring in one banner after another until they get it right. Zuma walks in, with daughter Duduzile in tow carrying a plate of fruit.
The 82-year-old is his usual bubbly self — after we introduce ourselves, he remarks: “Lisekhona lelophepha (does that newspaper still exist),” before bursting into his trademark giggle.
Zuma and the rest of the party leadership are in the city for a series of meetings in preparation for the party’s first anniversary, to be held at the Moses Mabhida stadium on December 15. The former president — who is facing a string of corruption charges related to the arms deal — has rebranded himself as a modern-day revolutionary fighting for the liberation of black people. If you listen to his speeches these days, you would swear he has never been in government.
The MK Party, just six months old on election day in May, shocked many when it received 14.5% of the votes — dethroning the EFF as the third-largest party in parliament. I ask him if he had expected such success. “Definitely. If that was not the case, I would not have started it. There would be no reason for me to do something that I said was not going to happen.”
His party has adopted populist policies including expropriation of land without compensation and the nationalisation of mines, banks, insurance companies and the Reserve Bank — some of the policies Zuma opposed in his first term as ANC president.
The party also wants to reintroduce compulsory national service for matriculants and send unmarried pregnant girls to Robben Island. In addition, the party is promising that once it takes power it will call for a referendum on the constitution with the aim of replacing our constitutional democracy with a system in which parliament is supreme.
Zuma says the MK Party was formed to revive the ideals espoused by the ANC’s founders — and claims the current ANC leadership has abandoned the party’s founding principles. He says the ANC has become corrupt and has started privatising state parastatals without consulting the people.
For many years as ANC leader, Zuma swore by the “national democratic revolution”, the ANC political programme that would supposedly bring about a nonracial and nonsexist society as envisaged in the Freedom Charter. But at our meeting, there is none of that “Charterist talk”. When he speaks of the ruling party abandoning its ideals he means those of “serving black people”; when he speaks of “unity”, he means “black unity”.
“I don’t understand this business of black and white brothers, mothers and fathers, sisters coming together because they [white people] are free and we are not free. It is said that we are free, but we are not free,” in reference to the GNU the former president tells me at one stage during the interview before pointing out that in most rural areas black folks still use untarred roads while their white counterparts travel on paved roads.
People must vote for the truth and they must vote for the interests of a black person ... How many tarred roads do you have going to your house as a black person? Do you have white people without a tarred road, even in the bundus?
— Jacob Zuma
Zuma tells us that in addition to these populist promises, MKP will embark on a campaign to encourage black people to vote MKP by making them realise that they have not been liberated. He has adopted race politics to win over the majority he needs to unseat the ANC.
He insists that the DA is a white party — and that black people should not just vote for black parties but for MKP specifically. He frowns on the ANC decision to form a government of national unity (GNU) with parties such as the DA and the Freedom Front Plus, saying he’s opposed to black parties working with white parties. “That was not what the (Nelson) Mandelas and whoever else was in the ANC would have expected to happen,” he says of the man who preached nation-building until his last breath.
“People must vote for the truth and they must vote for the interests of a black person ... How many tarred roads do you have going to your house as a black person? Do you have white people without a tarred road, even in the bundus?”
It is as if Zuma was never president between 2009 and 2018. He presents himself as a new people’s hero who all of a sudden will liberate all. I’m tempted to interject to remind him that he was once president but it will only degenerate into a back-and-forth and before I know it our time will be up. So I allow him to speak at length so I at least can understand his state of mind. Zuma is not retarded. He knows we remember he was president for nine years. But he is not talking to us, rather he is communicating to those who don’t care whether he delivered during that period. His plan involves collapsing black parties, and they all fall under the umbrella of the EFF.
But his plan will be tested in the 2026 local government elections in which his party is expected to inflict more pain on his former party. In the eThekwini metro, for example, there is acceptance among ANC leaders that it will require the ANC to perform some kind of a miracle to hold on to the metro.
I ask Zuma about his party’s target for the elections but he refuses to discuss numbers, only proclaiming that the MK Party will emerge as winner. But what does his party offer voters? Zuma says black South Africans want freedom. “We are clear as we move to local government elections we are going to be calling members and supporters to see the truth.
“We are even gonna talk to some parties that are black but white. I’m convinced this coming election people of this country will have understood that we are not really free. We must be free and we’re going to lead them into freedom.”
He insists that his party won the May 29 general election and was robbed. But the fact is that his party failed to produce any evidence of vote-rigging in court.
He says to prevent vote-rigging, once his party takes over power, God forbid, he will change the electoral process to make voting and counting more transparent.
“There is no democracy. If everything was fine it would be done fairly — nicely. I have never understood the counting of votes (behind closed doors).”
I remind him that he was elected twice — in 2009 and 2014 — through the same electoral process. “There was no democracy. I said it even at that time. I have questioned it all the time. Once we are in charge, we are going to change the voting system. My thinking at the moment, when the party is voting, there must be a big drum for MK. MK members must put their things there. If you are Inkatha, you must have your drum there where Inkatha will vote there. And those votes must be counted there. Later we take ours and count. Why can’t we do so if we are indeed democratic?”
If Zuma questioned our electoral laws when he was in power, he was not loud enough. His suggestion that everyone should vote in the open — would just not be acceptable to right-thinking South Africans who believe in democracy.
But this and similar ideas would not make Zuma any less popular. As long as he is alive, he is likely to increase his support base, which would spell disaster for the ANC. It would be the perfect revenge for a man believed to be aggrieved by how he was removed from power and arrested for being in contempt of the Constitutional Court.
In addition, insiders say, he is unhappy about how the state “neglected” him. This includes the condition of cars used by his bodyguards and lack of maintenance of the so-called security feature installed at his Nkandla homestead. Government officials are believed to be reluctant to conduct maintenance work in Nkandla given the controversy surrounding the construction of the home. As a result, some structures are said to be falling apart. Zuma confirms that no maintenance takes place at his home.
“They don’t (do maintenance). They stopped. They just stopped,” he says.
And how is his relationship with his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa? “I was once his deputy, he was once my deputy. We have never fought. He lives his life, I live my life.”
Asked how often they talk, he said: “Why should I be talking often to him when there are so many people to talk to? Instead of talking to my comrades? He’s talking to his comrades, he’s busy there.”
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