MKP's Power Struggles Harming Electoral Prospects

Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu

In the context of global politics, the official opposition party projects itself as an alternative government.

To earn this status, opposition parties hold governing parties accountable on all the issues including but not limited to respecting the national constitution, protecting citizens from criminals and foreign attacks (or threats), ensuring fiscal discipline, delivering services, protecting human rights, ensuring equal treatment of citizens, maintaining good relations with global partners while protecting political sovereignty, and ensuring job creation and poverty alleviation.

Whenever the governing party (governing alone or leading a coalition) fails to deliver on these and other matters, prospects of the opposition party toppling the government in the next election are significantly increased.

Opposition parties use the current government’s failures as they begin their election campaign. They remind voters about these failures and outline how they would improve the situation if they were to be given a mandate to govern.

Meanwhile, the governing party or coalition uses every strategy to convince the electorate that it remains relevant and deserves another chance. These strategies include over-emphasis of the successes it has made, downplaying its evident failures by arguing that they are temporary glitches that would be addressed in the next administration, blaming opposition parties for sabotaging the government’s plans, blaming external factors that have derailed their plans, and even putting the blame on natural factors such as drought and/or floods.

But one fact that cannot be repudiated is that it is easier to be the opposition party than to be in government. A good example is the DA. It has been making the loudest noise while it was the official opposition until the sixth administration.

Even during its campaigns for the 2024 general election, the DA was vocal on several issues about how the ANC was running the country. It labelled ANC leaders as thieves, corrupt individuals, incompetent leaders, and people who lack ethical behaviour and morals.

Intriguingly, after the 2024 general election, the DA made huge demands for positions in the multiparty coalition government that Cyril Ramaphosa was constituting under the auspices of the ANC.

For the first time, Ramaphosa’s party did not get an outright majority. It was forced to form a coalition of some sort and opted for a multiparty coalition. Although the DA did not get everything it had demanded, it was able to get some full ministerial positions and some deputy minister positions. 

Now that it is part of the government, its criticism has faded, yet many things are going wrong under the current multiparty government. It remains unclear how the party will rebrand itself when it prepares for the 2026 Local Government Election (LGE) and the 2029 general election.

Within this broader context, it is important to take a closer look at the MKP, which is the current official opposition supported by the EFF and other smaller parties. Has the MKP properly executed its mandate as the official opposition? Has it managed to endear itself to the electorate? How do voters perceive it?

To what extent has instability within the party’s leadership affected its chances to capitalise on the failures of the current administration? Following the ANC’s deviation from its initial socialist stance by embracing capitalism, and given the SACP’s political rhetoric that it is a socialist party while its leaders are evidently consumed by capitalism, what is the MKP’s stance on the two positions – capitalism and socialism?

These are very complex questions that should not be answered casually to score political points. They need substance and cogent analysis of the current national situation, the calibre of the political leadership and party membership, as well as geopolitics.

Immediately, the answer could be that the MKP’s prospects look good. The former governing party (ANC) and the former official opposition party (DA) are co-governing. Under their watch, the unemployment rate is high, poverty ravages the country, inequality has been sustained, the country’s economy is weak, crime statistics are shocking, and the list goes on. Ideally, these factors should be working in the MKP’s favour.

However, things are not as simple as they seem. The MKP has its fair share of challenges. These began soon after the election. When the party felt that it had been robbed of its votes, it made a mistake of relying on state institutions whose credibility had been dented.

With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better for the MKP to comply and complain later. This would have meant that it would constitute government in KZN, where it clearly performed better than all other parties, although official results placed it at 45 percent.

I am mindful of what Malcolm X once said, “People involved in a revolution don’t become part of the system; they destroy the system.” We also cannot ignore King Cetshwayo’s phrase “warding off the falling tree” when he argued that the Anglo-Zulu war was unavoidable. In a way, the MKP was in the same predicament. The decision to push it to the periphery was predetermined by the deal already clinched at the national level by the ANC, DA, and the IFP.

But since then, the MKP has had its own missteps. 

The first mistake has been instability in the party, where those deployed in certain positions are constantly changed. Indeed, all parties are infiltrated. Even after parties have established that some of their members are not loyal to the party, it is better to keep but observe them than to constantly replace them. 

Secondly, differences of opinion within the Zuma family could have been handled differently. Former President Zuma’s eldest daughter, Nkosazana Bonganini Zuma-Ncube, may have a genuine concern about the 17 men said to be fighting in the Russian war. But instead of opening a criminal case against her sister Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and two others, she could have sat them down to resolve this matter amicably.

As the 2026 LGE and the 2029 national polls approach, the MKP must convince the electorate that it is the alternative government.

* Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu is Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy at Nelson Mandela University.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.