Can MK party survive when Zuma is no longer around?

This election has been so wild, exciting and engaging. Credit to the media keeping us in the know and giving us, if nothing else, entertaining interviews on the floor of the various election centres. Watching the smug responses of the MK party spokespersons is pretty entertaining, since I don’t believe they’re going to age well.

That being said, the MK party has done so well in this election. In isolation, it’s impressive. In South Africa, it’s actually par for the course. There’s always one party that electrifies in some manner. Back in 1999, the UDM jumped on board and took more than half a million votes. Before she went Britney Spears – Madonna on us, Patricia de Lille grabbed a quarter of a million votes in 2004. 2009 saw Terror Lekota grab 30 seats as a newcomer. So, when Julius Malema entered the game in 2014 as a newbie, his 25-seat grab was impressive because we kind of just forgot about the ones who made inroads in elections of old. On the bottom end, there were firecrackers too. How the VF+ more than doubled their seats last outing was probably the most surprising.

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Cope’s only contribution to our discourse is a ‘hong hong’ soundbite. The ID crumbled when Patricia went DA. Is the UDM even still breathing? These big players of yesteryear are hardly seen, let alone remembered. That’s wonderful for a country that needs to move forward instead of dwelling on its past. It does also raise an important question; if the MK party was built around Jacob Zuma, where will it be once he’s gone?

They fought in the Constitutional Court to keep him on the parliamentary list and did all they could to ensure he’s the face of the party. He’s that important to them and for good reason. If you ask any South African, odds are they’ll tell you that MK is Jacob Zuma’s party. They won’t know much more about it.

So when people discover the MK party’s desire to decimate the constitution and hand all power to parliament – well, parliament and somehow also traditional leadership – then no amount of Zuma may make that palatable. So, without Zuma to umshini wami their way through a rally and when the hype has died down, what is the appeal of the MK?

Maybe there really is some appeal? Maybe there are lots of people who want to dismantle democracy and create a combo-kingdom-parliamentary-what-what. No matter what I name it, the idea itself does sound quite, erm, colonial.

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The MK party is as much Zuma as ID was De Lille, Cope is Lekota and UDM is Bantu Holomisa. Just look at the IFP without Mangosuthu Buthelezi. The EFF may survive without Juju. Only big parties built on multiple layers of personalities can maintain themselves in a personality contest, and even then, they take hits. ANC keeps taking successive hits and the DA took a tumble transitioning from the aunty to Mmusi Maimane. You need multiple heads if you intend to survive.

Those stressing about the future of SA because of the MK party, don’t. They’re probably going to turn into an unappealing non-entity once Zuma is dead. Those excited about the future of South Africa under the MK party, find other things to get excited about because beyond these five years, you may need to.

Maybe this piece doesn’t age well and I’m forced to go to some Dubai hospital ICU and fight with Cde General Secretary Atul Gupta to let me see the King and beg to keep my house. Doubtful, but anything is possible.

Just looking at the history of South African politics, one has to do a lot better than shock an election to be relevant long term.

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