MK Party chief whip Mzwanele Manyi. Photo: Darren Stewart/Getty Images
Some uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party members are pushing for the removal of chief whip Mzwanele Manyi, saying he is “inarticulate” and “incompetent”.
Manyi replaced Sihle Ngubane as the party’s chief whip in August last year shortly after ditching the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) for the Jacob Zuma-led MK.
Several MPs believe Manyi was only placed in the position because of his proximity to Zuma and secretary general Floyd Shivambu, also a defector from Julius Malema’s EFF.
“He can’t talk, he can’t even make a compelling argument in parliament, he can’t address the media, he is just out of his depth,” said one MK party MP, while acknowledging that administratively Manyi “can be okay”.
“You know, we end up clapping for Malema [in parliament]; it seems like we are led by Malema, who speaks on behalf of the opposition.”
“The last time [Manyi] made a speech during the State of the Nation address debate, we had to find a way to create chaos because we could not understand what he was saying. He is trying to have this Malema attitude, but it’s not working; we had to create a chaos of sound just to disrupt him.”
The source said the appointment of Manyi as chief whip has also caused a further breakdown between the EFF and the MK party in the so-called progressive caucus — a collection of small parties that are not part of the government of national unity.
Although Malema was in support of the caucus, he refused to meet Manyi, said the source. When Manyi speaks at progressive caucus meetings, “the EFF just switches off. We made a mistake putting him there.
“If we send somebody else there, [Malema] is very cooperative and if somebody else is speaking, the EFF will be supportive. Everyone is frustrated with Manyi because Floyd wants to run the caucus through him.”
But Manyi told the Mail & Guardian the source was “a planted wedge driver who disrespects the appointing decisions of HE President Zuma. The MK party does not entertain gossip from faceless moles.”
Some of the MK party’s MPs have also expressed their displeasure with the new clause that prohibits them from directly seeking a meeting with Zuma.
In a bid to limit access to Zuma, the party announced that members could not seek an audience with him unless they had written permission from the top leadership.
“All public representatives of the MK party are strictly forbidden from seeking direct meetings with the president before consultation with all the officials of the organisation, ie deputy president, secretary general, national organiser, national chairperson, deputy national chairperson, and treasury general,” according to the announcement.
A source said MPs are rejecting the new clause, saying it was done to protect Shivambu from disgruntled members, who would now have to go through Manyi first.
“He is blocking everything that is going to be a competition or a threat to him.”
Fear of challenging Shivambu
The source said many of those who used to be in government during Zuma’s time were afraid to speak up and register their discontent because they had been outside for too long and feared that they would lose their jobs by challenging Shivambu.
On Monday, on the sidelines of the MK party briefing held in Sandton, Shivambu denied that the party’s deputy president, John Hlophe, was given a poorly written response speech to the State of the Nation address at the last minute, after he had prepared his own, in a bid to embarrass him.
Shivambu said the allegations were rumours and the party did not respond to such.
But another MK party source, who is also an MP, said Shivambu was “lying”.
“I was there, there is no rumour, he is just arrogant. He is the one that gave Hlophe that speech to sabotage him. We were there in the caucus fighting this thing,” said the source.
“We have seen Hlophe’s speech, we know the WhatsApp messages he sent to Manyi requesting the speech, and then they sent the speech on Tuesday morning, the day of the debate. The fight of Dudu [Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who swore at Shivambu on X] started there, after that workshop of the parliamentarians.
“That workshop didn’t sit, they were just telling Floyd nonsense, they didn’t even let Floyd address them, it was that bad. This thing then continued where things got leaked to Floyd’s people and they started posting on social media, that was how Dudu responded.”
The source said there was talk that MPs should increase their party levies from R5 000 each month to 10% of their salary, a rule allegedly being pushed by Shivambu.
According to the source, MPs also believe that the party’s camouflage uniform, which has been “imposed” on them, is unnecessary and is a bid by Shivambu to replicate the EFF’s red overalls members wear in parliament.
There has been a pushback by the so-called December 16 faction, who believe they are the rightful founders of the party, and a member should replace Shivambu as secretary general.
This faction, which is seen to be led by Zuma-Sambudla, believes that “incompetent people” who followed Shivambu from the EFF are being placed in high-ranking positions, sidelining those who joined the MK party when it started.
They believe that Manyi, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and Shivambu should never have been allowed to hold leadership positions because they campaigned against them in last year’s general election. Despite that, the MK party replaced the EFF as the third biggest party in the country.
Mkhwebane has also found it difficult to enjoy full support in Mpumalanga as the provincial convenor because some members believe that former convenor Mary Phadi should be reinstated. This after the Mpumalanga high court ruled that her suspension was unconstitutional.
The party recently held two separate rallies in Mpumalanga, forcing supporters to choose between Mkhwebane and Phadi.
Some members also believe the announcement of advocate Dali Mpofu as the chairperson of the disciplinary committee was a “strategic way” to deal with those who do not want Shivambu as the secretary general.
There have also been questions about how the party will deal with the disciplinary process against Zuma-Sambudla after her X rant against Shivambu, given that Mpofu might be “conflicted”.
“Dali is her lawyer, a family friend and all that. But the reason they put Dali there is because they see him as the deputy president of the party and that is the other fight between Dali and the deputy president,” a source said.
“[The disciplinary committee] is starting to deal with people and Dali is the weapon there.”
The source added that despite Shivambu being the secretary general, he had lost ground, rendering his position useless because he was not leading anyone.
“He can’t face the people, he can’t go anywhere, he has lost the ground and is now a media [secretary general]. This is why he is appointing and making policies to make himself untouchable.”
A regional leader said Shivambu had his own agenda and was ruining how the party used to function before him, adding that the sentiments about Shivambu were common across the board and that the dissatisfaction on the ground was growing.
“You can’t work when people are constantly fighting you. It’s not because everything is bad that he is doing, but it’s just that sometimes you need people’s skills. You need to be able to move with people.
“Some of these things can really be managed through an engagement but if there’s no engagement and people feel there is a bit of arrogance, whether it’s substantive or not in terms of the issues they are raising, then there needs to be an engagement.”
The source said those “on the ground” have also raised concerns that the party was speaking more of Marxism than ubuntu, which it was founded on.
“On the ground, there is an appreciation that the organisation is growing. However, there is a fear of the way things are happening and the alienation of the base.”
MK party presidency head Magasela Mzobe said the policy to bar members from directly seeking an audience with Zuma was approved in September last year.
He said Zuma sat in on no less than five meetings before it was approved.
Mzobe said the clause does not prohibit members from speaking to Zuma, and instead prohibits them from wanting a direct mandate from him.
“The truth is you have got 58 members of parliament, if all of them individually go to him and ask him ‘president what do we say in Sona address ’… which organisation can be run like that?”
“Everyone accuses MK of being a Zuma party and the president says I have appointed people in all these structures precisely because this is not a Zuma party. He says ‘you guys must make decisions where you are unless you have failed to make decisions where you are and then the president intervenes’.”
He said Zuma was finding himself meeting MPs every day about what they think must happen in parliament, adding that the lack of induction when they joined the party might have created this problem.
“We are preempting that if we allow this. Next year we’ll be having no less than 3 000 councillors; all of them will rush to Nkandla to get a mandate about a municipality when there is a speaker, chief whip and a regional leadership, it’s unfair to the president.”