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The progressive caucus parties might grab the strategic initiative

This was published in TimeLive on 22 June 2024


Since the groundbreaking announcement by Jacob Zuma that he will be spearheading the MK Party's campaign in the 2024 elections, South African politics have taken a dramatic turn. The well-oiled propaganda machine, which had already settled on a consensus about the election's outcome, started using Zuma, the individual, to undermine the MK Party. The ANC was relieved of the burden of being the sole target. The narrative of ensuring the ANC loses absolute majority power resonated with the MK Party, where various dissatisfied members of the ANC were seeking an alternative. Against all odds, the MK Party has survived and thrived, defying the initial dismissals as a group of disgruntled ANC activists. The establishment has not learnt despite a known history of Jacob Zuma thriving on any characterisation of 'his projects' within the corruption and state capture narrative. 

 

The leaders of RSA have been vocal about their priority to criminalize Zuma and everything he represents, even at the cost of ignoring the substantive issues he raises. The deafening of RSA society to the MK Party-led progressive caucus's message has been accepted as a necessary act to curb Zuma's influence beyond the ANC. The commitment to not hear the MK Party, even if it is their decision not to be involved, has cast a shadow over establishing the Government of National Unity (GNU), making its 'national' or 'provincial character in KZN' hollow.

 

Similar to the arrest of Zuma without a trial in July 2021 for conscientious contempt of court, the marginalization of the MK Party has been escalating since Zuma announced his affiliation with it. The upcoming national election, barring any health or age-related challenges, will serve as a litmus test for how his decision to lead the MK Party has bolstered its support base. Given the nature of the grievances the MKP-PC is pursuing, it is becoming increasingly difficult and is transforming into a formidable and politically lethal opposition force in RSA. The way it orchestrated its election numbers and demonstrated its support base should have prompted a change in the establishment's tactics by now. The electoral court's challenge of the results and the potential to deliver a severe credibility blow to the IEC could be an act of desperation, the consequences of which for the constitution could be catastrophic, a prospect that should raise serious concerns. 

 

The legitimate decision to establish a GNU is somewhat argued, and the publicly managed predominance of the DA might be the central flaw in the governing establishment's strategy and not a failure of tactics. The outside-the-tent position of the MK Party and the EFF imposes constraints on the trustworthiness of parties to the GNU about the principles they have signed for. The gross undermining of the depth of the national grievances at the slow pace at which the liberation promise in the Constitution becomes a lived daily experience is the source of political power and growth of the MKP-PC opposition axis. To the detriment of the GNU signatories, some of them, and in pursuit of the genuine emotions behind their mandates, have made pronouncements whose logical implementation end is the reversal of what the MKP-PC considers a thesis of its existence. 

 

The almost slavish attention to the corruption and state capture narrative about Jacob Zuma, the person, has tended to confuse the strategic and tactical success of the GNU-advocating establishment. For a while, it has been ignored or cynically airbrushed out of actual existence, as has the strategic power of the MK-EFF growth, even as their (manufactured or otherwise) reputation losses mount. As the leaders of MKP-PC are publicly lynched by the system, state power, and the deep state, there is mounting evidence that their source of power is the extent to which the public lynching confirms their theories about how hostile the system is to those it can handle their 'truth'. 

 

The scale and support of the MKP-PC rhetoric derive from an otherwise jobless economy, growing poverty facing society, and inequality choked in the binary of race and class, which is the motive force that grows it as a movement. The hush tones at which several nodes of influence have been embracing the MKP-EFF agenda, and not the conduct of its leadership, is backing enough for it to replenish its strategies and tactics, gain resources, and increase its capability to undermine the GNU-advocating establishment. Unlike when the EFF led the anti-establishment rhetoric, the MK Party has brought into the complex more than just walk-in volunteers to the cause, but the proverbial pigs that commit to the breakfast. The capturing of the liberation struggle's substrate of its entire martyrdom encapsulated in the use of uMkhonto we Sizwe as the rallying name has relocated the power to decide who is the struggle hero irrespective of 'other' criteria in the society that accrues benefits from such a hero. 

 

The National Dialogue to support the GNU might face the risk of legitimacy if its design does not subscribe to the egoistic tastes of political leaders bruised by palace politics and similar reasons. There is no way a 40% voter support-wielding leader of the GNU can expect the decisions of the National Dialogue it has supported to be accepted in a province where a 45% voter support-wielding leader is excluded from the PNU. It is a cocktail of chaos. The support of the MK Party is real, and anyone who theorises its non-existence agrees with Jacob Zuma that the results are not a true reflection of what happened on 29 May 2024. 

If the thesis of the GNU is about the antithesis of the nine wasted years, and the thesis of those who were in charge during the nine wasted years is the antithesis of apartheid, according to them, then what is the thesis of going forward without being an antithesis of any thesis or antithesis. This is what the dialogue should take South Africa towards. Therein lies the unencumbered strategic initiative. CUT!!!

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