TOM EATON | All aboard the MKP, the Ark to weather any political storm

Today, the leader of the uMkhonto weSizwe party (MKP) will attend a hearing at which he will tell the ANC — an entirely separate party — that he should still, in fact, be a member of the ANC; a party which, I remind you, he campaigned against in May’s election.

At first glance, it’s a situation that seems to reiterate why satire is dead. And yet I have to admit that it’s less bonkers than it seems, and not only because Jacob Zuma has written a constitution for MKP that allows its members to join other parties under very specific circumstances like, for example, when they are Jacob Zuma and they feel like joining another party.

Mostly, however, it makes sense because MKP and ANC are not actually separate parties, at least not in Zuma’s mind.

The easiest way to understand this is to think of the biblical myth of Noah’s Ark. 

Into this ark (the god of self-preservation explained) Zuma should lead his family and all his followers, two by two, taking care to leave a space for Mzwanele Manyi, who would almost certainly come scampering up the gangplank later, and possibly also Busisiwe Mkhwebane once those bills started piling up.   

Many years ago (the gospel of Jacob tells us) the ANC was a paradise, chosen by God to rule until Jesus returned. It was full of miracles and wonders, like firepools, Des van Rooyen becoming finance minister, and the Guptas landing at Waterkloof without anybody more senior than a warrant officer knowing about it.

Slowly, however, evil began to creep into the Eden of the ANC, in the form of people who could do hard sums, and who thought democratic institutions were a good idea, and brave whistle-blowers who handed over hard drives to dedicated journalists; and misery began to spread through the party.

And so it was that the god of self-preservation spoke to Zuma and warned him that the ANC was about to be destroyed by a terrible flood of consequences and that he should build a great ark out of cypress wood, or, if there wasn’t any cypress wood available, then out of populist rhetoric and ludicrous promises, all draped on a rough framework of neo-feudalism and vaguely Marxist-flavoured bullshit, and call it MKP.

Into this ark (the god of self-preservation explained) Zuma should lead his family and all his followers, two by two, taking care to leave a space for Mzwanele Manyi, who would almost certainly come scampering up the gangplank later, and possibly also Busisiwe Mkhwebane once those bills started piling up.   

Then they would draw up the gangplank, ride out the storm, and watch the new, corrupt, ANC die. And once it did, and the tide turned, Zuma’s MKP ark would find dry ground, and his followers would go forth and create a new ANC in the image of the god of self-preservation and of Zuma, which, weirdly, would start looking more or less identical.

Of course, all the great myths are full of nonsense and contradictions. I can’t tell you, for example, how Zuma can claim to want to return the ANC to its golden era as a defender of democracy while he also tells MKP supporters that he’ll install a system of government where unelected priests and kings have as much power (if not more) than elected MPs.

But I can tell you that once you understand what MKP is, much of the confusion about Zuma’s appeal today falls away.

And if you’re still unsure, well, what can I tell you? Gods — and dodgy former presidents — work in mysterious ways ...