ANC NEC calls MKMVA actions ‘shameful’, with disbandment now imminent

A special ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Monday focused mainly on the situation at Nkandla – the homestead of former president Jacob Zuma – as well as the country’s fight against the third wave of Covid-19 infections. 

At a media briefing on Tuesday morning, ANC acting secretary-general Jessie Duarte said political developments and their implications over the past six days had not only resulted in mass protests against the Constitutional Court’s (ConCourt’s) 15-month contempt of court jail sentence for Zuma, but also disturbing calls for violence and even civil war.

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MKMVA disbandment calls renewed

Calls for violence, Duarte said, had come from the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA), with spokesperson Carl Niehaus among its most prominent faces.

The situation outside Nkandla also resulted in deliberate defiance of Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings and social distancing, she said. 

“The NEC clearly stated that the situation in KwaZulu-Natal does not represent a popular uprising, but has been engineered from within the ranks of the ANC,” she said. 

As such, the ANC NEC called for the National Working Committee’s decision to immediately disband the MKMWA and MK Council to be implemented and the establishment of an MK Veterans Unity Conference Preparatory Committee. 

Duarte said the actions of MKMVA, especially in light of the 60-year anniversary of Umkhonto weSizwe as a liberation army, was “a shameful blight on this proud history”. 

“The threat of violence aimed at undermining our democracy and its core institutions is counter-revolutionary, akin to similar displays and acts by extreme right-wing elements.” 

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The actions by organisers responsible for inciting violence and defying Covid-19 protocols would also be investigated, she said. This includes members of the party shown burning ANC regalia and “other acts of ill-discipline”, which Duarte said violated the ANC’s constitution and code of conduct. 

Zuma ‘still loved and respected’

During the briefing’s question-and-answer session, Duarte said Zuma was still an elder of the ANC who “we love and respect”. 

She committed to senior party members engaging in talks with Zuma about his legal plight.

“Zuma is exploring every legal avenue presented to him”. 

She said the ANC would be reaching out to suspended secretary-general Ace Magashule, following what he had said in Nkandla this past weekend, allegedly in violation of his suspension conditions. 

“We will be asking him what he meant”, she said, particularly regarding his call for structures disbanded by the party to “disobey leadership”. 

“When they disband you as a branch, you must still be a branch. When they expel you, you must still be a member of the ANC. You must not go anywhere,” Magashule told cheering crowds on Saturday.