The Zuma playbook — He’s appealing against ANC expulsion as part of plan to become president again

Expelled by the ANC on Friday, Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party leader and former head of state Jacob Zuma took a day to state his true intention: to take back the ANC.

In an interview in the Sunday Times, Zuma said: “When we were establishing the MK party – we met as black parties … and agreed that we are going to take over … it’s something that happened.” 

On Friday, 22 November, the ANC national disciplinary appeals committee, headed by Johnny de Lange, Soviet Lekganyane and Noxolo Kiviet, upheld Zuma’s expulsion. This ended an affiliation that started when Zuma joined the ANC at 17 – he is now 82. 

“Mr Zuma’s behaviour exemplifies the highest form of ill-discipline and a direct assault on the historical mission of the ANC. By establishing and leading a rival political party, he abandoned the core values of organisational loyalty and collective accountability, converting himself into a tool for destabilisation,” the party said.

“His [Zuma’s] actions have undermined the unity and cohesion of the movement at a time when it is critical to consolidate and push forward with organisational renewal and confront South Africa’s pressing challenges. This decision must serve as a reminder that no individual is greater than the movement.”

A day after the ANC issued its statement, the Jacob Zuma Foundation responded: “President Zuma strongly rejects the notion that the ANC under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa has the authority to expel him from a movement to which he has dedicated his life.”

He will appeal to the party’s national executive committee and possibly sue the ANC as part of Zuma’s lawfare strategy – fighting political battles in court – which he excels at. This is part of MK’s plan to reverse into the ANC and take over, a strategy made clear by the weekend interview in the Sunday Times. Veteran members such as Zuma see the ANC as family, and you can’t be expelled from kin.  

This strategy is neither far-fetched nor impossible. President Cyril Ramaphosa has more than 1,000 days before becoming a lame-duck leader when his term as party president ends. Zuma and MK target this date as an opportunity to prosecute the reunification of black-led and liberation movement parties, where the MK party now situates itself. 

An analyst who has worked with Zuma says the former president believes only a Nguni person can lead the ANC, and that Ramaphosa has sold out to capital. This is because of the outsized role that big business plays in the state. The CEO initiative has helped Ramaphosa eliminate the political liability that load-shedding has become and promises a second phase that could crack the growth and job problem, but the political cost is high. Zuma is exploiting unhappiness within the ANC at Ramaphosa’s relationship with capital to stage a defiance campaign against his expulsion. This will build the sleeper community of MK supporters in the ANC, such as Tony Yengeni, who is the public face of a constituency in the ANC that also supports MK. 

“Both Zuma and [former President] Thabo [Mbeki] feel Cyril is destroying the ANC. They believe the ANC needs to take back power but that there is no plan to re-establish the dominance of the ANC,” said the analyst, who cannot be quoted publicly. There is continuing concern by the ANC that it is being outflanked by Democratic Alliance ministers in the Government of National Unity (GNU) Cabinet and by new leaders such as Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie of the Patriotic Alliance.


This scenario document summary shows that black party unity surfaced as the ANC met to shape power agreements after the seismic loss it suffered in the May 2024 election. This scenario was popular but ultimately did not win the day as the party chose the GNU, which now governs South Africa through a partnership with the DA and eight other parties. 

Within the Tripartite Alliance, the GNU remains unpopular, and the South African Communist Party (SACP) is leading an intra-alliance campaign against it. This week, the ANC goes into talks with its communist ally to deal with its growing public concerns about the direction of the GNU. Cosatu leader Zingiswa Losi has indicated that Cosatu is also opposed to South Africa’s macro-economic policies under Ramaphosa, even though she is his staunch ally. 

The ANC in Gauteng is publicly opposed to the GNU, as are other provinces that feel the power-sharing agreement is diminishing the party. Zuma wants to tap into this thickening vein of opposition, and he will treat his expulsion as illegitimate.

In his nine-page letter to explain his jump to MK, Dali Mpofu sets out the plan for black unity he carved in secret meetings over two years. 

“I have been part of the conceptualisation, formation, announcement and protection, if not the very continued existence of uMkhonto Wesizwe,” he wrote. “I can reveal that for the best part of 12 months between January and December 2023, we held a series of critical two-person engagements, which were later expanded to a very limited number of other leaders and persons. These underground meetings took place in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and later on in Gauteng.

“Within the next five years, we need to put all our collective energies and focus on the sacred mission to reunite the forces of African liberation in South Africa, whatever it takes. The so-called GNU must be fought, defeated and dismantled. By any lawful means necessary,” Mpofu wrote.

The letter sets out the MK strategy and shows that by refusing to accept the legitimacy of his expulsion from the ANC, Zuma has fired the starting gun on its rollout. 

MK was the story of the May 2024 election: it won 14.6% of the vote, the highest ever for a start-up party. And it took those votes from the ANC, pushing the party to a 40.2% defeat; it also cut support for the EFF down to 9.5% and forced the red berets into fourth position while party leader Julius Malema had bet on being in second position. 

With former EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu, who joined the MK party as national organiser, being appointed as secretary-general, a decisive role, at the weekend, MK announced that Joe Ndhlela will replace him as the national organiser. Ndhlela, reportedly a convicted fraudster, was with the Patriotic Alliance but quit in November 2023. DM