ANC ignores Jacob Zuma at its peril

This week’s “Are you serious?” award has to go to uMkhonto weSizwe party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela for his comment that it was “shocked and dismayed” that its president, Jacob Zuma, had been expelled from the ANC.

Really? You didn’t see the irony, never mind the political legality, of a man admitting he is president of a political party while still expecting to stay a member in good standing of another political organisation?

The former president seems to have forgotten his oft-quoted assessment, some years ago, that the ANC would “rule until Jesus comes” as he goes about building up MK.

ALSO READ: ‘Running on a dangerous platform’: ANC confirms Zuma’s expulsion

And, whether you love or loathe Zuma, he has single-handedly become the biggest threat to the survival of the ANC in its 112 years of existence.

The potential he displays to set in motion events that could terminally fragment the ANC dwarfs in seriousness even the biggest splits in the party’s history.

The ANC survived the rebellion of the Africanists in 1969 – they were expelled after voicing their concerns that the party was dominated by whites and Indians.

It shrugged off the expulsion of Bantu Holomisa in 1996 and the 2008 departure of Mosiuoa Lekota. Both men went on to form their own parties and almost disappeared from view afterwards.

ALSO READ: MK party claims alleged leak of Zuma expulsion document an ‘attempt to undermine him’

Even the expulsion of Julius Malema in 2012 – and his formation of the EFF – did not hurt the ANC as much as Zuma’s party has done.

From nowhere less than a year ago, MK has garnered 15% of the national vote and is now the official opposition to the government of national unity.

Zuma and MK represent those in society who feel wounded by the ANC and its manifest failure to deliver a better life for all – or to share the loot.

That “coalition of the wounded” is something the ANC ignores at its own peril.