Zuma’s allies: A threat to democracy?

During Saturday night’s fever at the IEC’s Results Operations Centre (ROC), Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene were warmly received by “ROC star” Jacob Zuma.

To a wide audience, the ex-convicts displayed their allegiance. Thank heavens the DA did not earlier succumb to attempts by Herman Mashaba to bring McKenzie’s Patriotic Alliance (PA) on board in Johannesburg or in the Multi-Party Charter.

Imagine being associated with Zuma’s self-serving assault on our constitutional democracy.

Zuma, McKenzie and Kunene are long acquainted, having featured on the front page of the Sunday Times in 2017 under the headline: “Zuma’s pals in R5 billion gas deal: ‘New Guptas’, former convicts Kunene and McKenzie, introduced as ‘BEE partners’ on Moscow junket”.

The Russian connection lingers when the question arises: who is funding Zuma’s MK party? This column recently said a vote for MK equals a vote for Vladimir Putin. More on that another time, perhaps.

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On Monday, The Citizen reader Anna voiced a frequently asked question: How can McKenzie go to parliament with a criminal record when Zuma cannot.

Indeed, the SA Constitution says a person is not eligible to be an MP if they have been sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment without the option of a fine.

However, the ban is not a life sentence. There is a time limit. The disqualification applies for five years after the end of the sentence. After that, ex-cons may become MPs. McKenzie passed that milestone decades ago.

Also basking in Zuma’s “ROC star” limelight was Colleen Makhubele, who previously occupied the position of speaker of the Joburg City Council. At the time she represented Cope, which had only one member in the 270-seat council.

After falling out with Cope, Makhubele emerged as president of the SA Rainbow Alliance (Sara), a collection of tiny parties.

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At Sara’s launch last year, Makhubele said: “The new political bloc was thinking bigger than opposition politics and was vying to unseat the governing ANC.”

Reality check. In last week’s elections Sara gathered a mere 959 of the 1 445 202 votes cast in the national ballot in Johannesburg.

If this were translated to seats in council, Makhubele would not have earned even a tiny pin-cushion.

Yet there she was on Saturday night, speaking on behalf of another collection of the disgruntled, lost in adulation of Zuma, whom she referred to as “our father”, who “understands what it means to suffer injustice”.

For context, remember that as Joburg speaker, Makhubele presented herself as a women’s champion. Her favourite T-shirt declared: “Girls can do anything.”

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Yet on Saturday she was an imbongi (praise singer) for the man accused in 2005 of raping Khwezi (Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo), who was hounded to death by Zuma supporters.

Khwezi knew what it really meant to suffer injustice.

Gareth van Onselen describes MK party as “a grievance machine for a single, deeply wounded ethno-nationalist”. And the PA as “a compassionless hate machine”.

This combination of perpetually aggrieved victimhood and hateful anger is a threat to our constitutional democracy.

Note how often Zuma & co mock the constitution.

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Leaders now charting SA’s way forward must please steer away from perpetual grievance and hate. Give peace a chance.