Political analyst Prof Susan Booysen says this week’s turmoil in the MK Party illustrates how the organisation operates with double standards under Jacob Zuma’s control.
After the suspension of deputy leader John Hlophe and the reinstatement of Colleen Makhubele as chief whip this week, Booysen said Zuma’s conduct shows that collective leadership does not exist in practice.
“We’ve seen Zuma assert himself and say this was not a case of collective decision-making, but that is the same moment that he takes a non-collective, single-person decision as to what actually the case should be,” she said.
Booysen added that the MK Party has “been functioning without any conventional structures or processes”, with “all the serious leadership decisions taken by him [Zuma]”.
“It has always been absolutely clear that this is a Jacob Zuma party,” she said, describing it as “a strange political party, definitely not one that plays by the usual rules of the game — it makes its own and changes its own along the way.”
On the party’s internal rules, she said “The rule of the MKP game is instability and discretion by Jacob Zuma. The fact they now say Hlophe had not done collective decision-making doesn’t hold much credibility.”
Despite the internal turbulence, Booysen said the party — formed due to discontent with the ANC — could sustain its electoral performance in the next national and provincial elections.
TimesLIVE
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