I know that I write about Mzwanele Manyi quite often — perhaps too often, given how little influence he’s had in local politics for the last many years. But on a purely comedic level the man is the gift that keeps on giving — and on Thursday he delivered again, this time with an online panic that was pure French farce.
The heart of the joke, as is usually the case, was Manyi’s loyalty, and I use the word “heart” deliberately: in a country haunted by floor-crossers, fence-sitters, or, in the case of Patricia de Lille, people who’ve started more parties than a cocaine dealer in Ibiza, Manyi’s steadfastness is so rare and performed with such stoicism that you can’t help admiring it.
Granted, there was that brief 15-month fling in 2023 and 2024 — a political midlife crisis, if you will, when he left the metaphorical wife and kids to plunge headlong into the youthful, utopian cuddle-puddle of the EFF — but his heart has always been true: for Manyi, the light that breaks through yonder window has been, and always will be, Jacob Zuma.
Certainly, when Manyi has been given the choice between serving Zuma and the constitution, there hasn’t been a doubt: whether it was suggesting that coloured people might have to be moved out of the Western Cape to balance the ANC’s books or that freedom of expression might have to be curtailed to prevent Zuma’s feelings from being hurt, he’s shown that there is pretty much nothing he wouldn’t do for Zuma, the Zuma family, and whoever is bankrolling them at the time.
All of which is why Thursday morning must have been so traumatic for Manyi, and why it was so funny for the rest of us.
Nobody knows for sure why he decided to post the particular tweet he posted. Perhaps he woke up from a dream in which people were laughing at Zuma, or perhaps a departing Floyd Shivambu has dropped the last comradely pretences and recently told him a few home truths about what Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party (MK Party) is actually for.
Whatever the reason, bright and early on Thursday morning Manyi banged out this winner: “When Anglo started, it was a family venture by the Oppenheimers. When Toyota SA started, it was a family venture by the Wessels family and so on. Never heared [sic] anyone complain about the above. But when the Zuma family starts a political party, then it’s a huge problem. Apartheid lives on.”
Within seconds his mentions were in uproar as X users including Mbhazima Shilowa thanked the hapless Manyi for providing the nation with official confirmation that MK Party had, in fact, been started as a business for the enrichment of its founding members and that those members were Zuma and his family.
It was funny in a sort of bitter, wry way, but then Manyi did something that elevated it into gorgeous slapstick: he deleted it
It was funny in a sort of bitter, wry way, but then Manyi did something that elevated it into gorgeous slapstick: he deleted it.
With a panicked jab of this finger he raised the curtain on a scene straight out of Fawlty Towers: a loyal courtier, banging out what he thinks is a zinger in defence of his king, then sitting back happily, waiting for the fools and enemies to start objecting; reading the first few replies defiantly, rolling his eyes at their craven, illiterate tweets and then...
Oh. Oh no. Oh God. Oh no.
The sick, clammy realisation of what he’s done, the sweat popping out on his palms as he imagines a senior MK Party official handing the fur-lined party cellphone to Zuma, saying “You need to see this, Daddy.”
A frantic deletion; a moment of relief. And then the second realisation: that he’d just pointed a spotlight at his confession and confirmed, beyond all reasonable doubts, that he had spoken true, and now the furry phone was being looked at again, and anointed heads were shaking slowly in resigned frustration.
“Why do we keep him on, Daddy?”
“Well, heh heh, at least he’s loyal, right?”
No wonder I can’t look away.
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