No problem for ATM after Manyi joins EFF

African Transformation Movement (ATM) president Vuyo Zungula has vowed that the party would not lose support in the 2024 general elections after the resignation of its former National Executive Committee (NEC) member Mzwanele Manyi.

Manyi said on Friday that he had left the ATM to join a “revolutionary movement”, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Allegations of Gupta funding

However, this has seemed to be a relief for the ATM as there were allegations that the party was funded by the Guptas because of the relationship between them and Manyi.

Zungula said the party was not anxious that Manyi’s resignation would spell a loss of support at the polls.

“There is nothing we are going to lose with Mr Manyi leaving. Having the narrative that we are a Gupta-funded party did not help us. Naturally, because Mr Manyi was close to the Guptas they would make such inferences…” Zungula said.

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“This is another way in which people should see that there was never a Mr Manyi behind the formation of the ATM, bankrolling the ATM. Rather we had a Mr Manyi who joined a party that existed before him and it will continue to grow even if he has left.

“The party has never been funded by the Gupta people. If the party was funded by such people, we would have had so much money. Even the money that was used to register the party for the elections came from the collection of the church members who support this party.”

Links to Zuma and Magashule

There have also been claims the ATM was formed by ANC leaders like former secretary-general Ace Magashule and former president Jacob Zuma to undermine President Cyril Ramaphosa’s rule as they did not accept the outcomes of the 2017 ANC National Conference where he was elected ANC president.

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Zungula said despite the burden of being called a Gupta party, the ATM had also tried to clarify it was not formed by disgruntled ANC members.

“Mr Zuma, Mr Magashule and Mr Manyi have never been any part of the formation of the party. Even if one had to check if I, the president of the ATM, had been in a space with all three of them before Manyi joined, you’d never find anything of that nature because it is not true,” he said.