Former president Jacob Zuma was suspended on Monday by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC for contravening rule 25.60 of the party’s Constitution, after he announced on December 16 that he would not campaign or vote for the ANC and would instead back the MK Party at this year’s elections.
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula during a media briefing, accused Zuma of actively impugning the integrity of the ANC and campaigning to dislodge the ANC from power, while claiming that he has not terminated his membership.
Zuma on Sunday addressed a MK Party rally in KwaXimba, eThekwini where he told supporters that people were facing a new struggle and that those who had fought oppression were now turning into oppressors.
KwaXimba was once the ANC’s biggest ward by membership nationally.
Mbalula said it was unprecedented in the modern dispensation of the party for someone of Zuma’s stature to leave the ANC.
“The NEC during its ordinary meeting held from January 26-29, 2024 resolved to invoke Rule 25.60 of the ANC Constitution: ‘If justifiable exceptional circumstances warrant an immediate decision of temporary suspension of a member without eliciting the comment or response of such member as contemplated above, the NEC, the NWC, the PEC or the PWC, as the case may be, may summarily suspend such member’.
“The NEC concluded that exceptional circumstances exist to justify and warrant an immediate decision to suspend former ANC president JG Zuma in line with Rule 25.60 as stated above,” Mbalula said.
Mbalula said the formation of the MK party was not an accident.
“It is a deliberate attempt to use the proud history of armed Struggle against the apartheid regime to lend credibility to what is a blatantly counter-revolutionary agenda.”
He said the ANC had tried many ways to reach out to Zuma but he “had closed the doors”.
MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndlela said Zuma would respond once he receives communication in the form of a letter or a formal communique.
The Mercury