Floyd Shivambu said small parties should not fight in different corners when there was already a revolutionary progressive platform. (Photo by Luba Lesolle/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
The uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party wants the leaders of smaller political parties to deregister them and join it in a bid to build its numbers and overthrow the ANC-led unity government.
On Tuesday night, the MK party’s national organiser, Floyd Shivambu, told supporters in eThekwini who were campaigning for the ward 33 by-election that the process of small parties deregistering and joining Jacob Zuma‘s party had begun. He said four parties had already done so, and more were set to follow.
“I can assure you that before the end of the year, we’re going to have many other political parties including some that even have seats in parliament that are going to fold into uMkhonto weSizwe so that we can form one united front of progressive forces,” Shivambu said.
“President Zuma says a simple thing — that the reason why we were under colonialism is because the settlers fought us as separate small groups. We were never united as black people. They fought us and defeated us as small groups, and then later on they combined all of us and said they were in charge of us.”
Shivambu said parties should not make a similar mistake by fighting in different corners when there was already a revolutionary progressive platform “which we must consolidate to fight for total emancipation, for total freedom, that is the struggle we are signing up for”.
Former Johannesburg speaker and former South African Rainbow Alliance (Sara) president Colleen Makhubele said she had dumped her party in favour of the MK party because of the response of voters to it.
Makhubele said many of the small parties that had contested the 29 May general elections were “saying the same thing” and it was now time for “consolidating” and for black parties to put aside their egos and come together.
“People have responded to what MK stands for. Our parties could not even get seats. Over 26 parties on a ballot paper are sitting at home now, the electorate rejected them. Even those who had millions of funding maybe even got one seat which will not have an impact anywhere,” she said.
Former Xivula president Bongani Baloyi, who also collapsed his party to join the MK party, said he had done so because he saw it an alternative to the ANC and that smaller parties could help build it into a “solid force”.
Baloyi said ego and contestation for positions would not be an issue because he and other leaders had voluntarily deregistered their parties and joined the MK party.
“I don’t see the issues of egos being there. When you work with people, you are bound to have differences with people, but I think here the cause resonates better with us and many leaders,” Baloyi said, adding that it was “unfair” to judge former critics of Zuma who have now joined his party.
“If four million million people saw the value in the MK party, we see the value as well,” he said.
During Baloyi’s introduction as an MK member in Soweto last week, some of the party members present raised concerns that people like him would be parachuted into senior positions, elbowing out those who had been mobilising for it during the elections.
The party has recently sent former Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe and former Transnet head Lucky Montana, both of whom are named in the state capture report, as well as impeached judge president John Hlophe and former Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Mzwanele Manyi to represent it in parliament.
Baloyi said people should not be “disheartened” because the party needed to have broad appeal and to attract “as many talented individuals as possible because different people will play different roles”.
“The revolution needs people of different credentials and talents as we are approaching key stages and attracting those. It should be welcomed and celebrated,” he said. “There have to be warm bodies to assist and grow the party and structures of the party.”
In Soweto last week, Baloyi said he would decline any offer to go to parliament or the provincial legislature because he wanted to work on the ground.
The MK party also contested a significant number of this week’s 23 by-elections around the country to replace councillors who had resigned to move to provincial legislatures.
The party won its first by-election outside KwaZulu-Natal two weeks ago when it took Photsaneng in North West, trouncing both the EFF and the ANC.
The ANC brought out its big guns in response in Soweto, ahead of the ward 21 contest there.
Among the leaders sent to counter the MK threat were Gauteng ANC chair Panyaza Lesufi, provincial secretary TK Nciza, Johannesburg regional leader Dada Morero and Johannesburg regional secretary Sasabone Manganyi.
The EFF, Patriotic Alliance, MK party and the ANC were all visible in the ward, placing gazebos outside the voting station.
“MK party is not the first organisation to want to collaborate with other parties and remove the ANC,” Nciza said.
He said the ANC knew where it had dropped the ball and was committed to regaining the ground it had lost.
Morero said the ANC was taking by-elections seriously and that leaders from all levels, including second deputy secretary general Nomvuala Mokonyane, had been deployed to campaign in the last week.
“We have taken a view that we must win these wards,” Morero said.
In addition to taking votes from the ANC, EFF and Inkatha Freedom Party at national, provincial and municipal level, the MK party has contested the latest round of student representative council (SRC) elections at institutions of higher learning.
But in Gauteng, North West, the Free State and Limpopo, the party’s entry into student politics had little effect on the EFF student command and the ANC-aligned South African Student Congress (Sasco), taking only one SRC seat at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT).
EFF student command president Sihle Lonzi said that although MK had made some progress, his party was “not worried” about its rise on campuses.
“They didn’t find expression in the University of Free State, University of Limpopo, North West University Mafikeng campus. They only found expression at TUT in Soshanguve particular and a few of the other campuses. For us now there is no scientific indicator that says we should be worried,” Lonzi said.
Lonzi said the MK student movement had come third after Sasco and the EFF at the Elangeni TVET college in KwaZulu-Natal and his party looked forward, with confidence, to the results from the Mangosuthu University of Technology, University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Zululand.
“We are not worried at all about the MK party in higher education. We still believe the student movement of the EFF still enjoys a very huge and life hegemony over the young people in South Africa,” Lonzi said.
Baloyi said the performance of the MK party student movement was going to “shock a lot of people” and the youth saw it as a credible alternative future of the country.
“When young people are joining it confirms all of this and that actually, uMkhonto weSizwe [party] is on the right path. We are hopeful that we are going to see more than what we are seeing now,” he said.
“Having experienced people like Floyd Shivambu leading mobilisation, coordination and structures of the party is going to yield the type of growth we are seeing. The 2026 election is going to be a further indication that uMkhonto weSizwe [party] is going to take government in 2029.”