MALAIKA MAHLATSI | Lack of revolt by supporters over MK Party's forgery exposé is concerning

Last week, the Umkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) released a statement announcing the expulsion of five of its members, including the man who registered the party with the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) last year, Jabulani Khumalo.

Until very recently, with the emergence of former president Jacob Zuma as the party’s presidential hopeful and number one on its list to parliament, Khumalo was the face and leader of the party. He is second on the said list, which has already been submitted to the IEC.

This expulsion comes just weeks after the party removed its youth league former national coordinator, Bonginkosi Khanyile and three other leaders of the structure. For a party that has repeatedly stated that it doesn’t have elected leaders because its focus is on ensuring it wins a two-thirds majority in the upcoming general election, rather than on an elective conference and talks about leadership, the MK Party is very invested in issues of leadership and positions.

The expulsion of Khumalo and four other individuals was followed by shocking news about the MK Party forging signatures. According to a report published by the City Press this past weekend, a former senior MK Party official, Lennox Ntsodo, filed an affidavit with the Western Cape police claiming that the party systematically forged signatures to meet the IEC’s threshold of 15,000 signatures to appear on the election ballot. Ntsodo claims that he recruited 20 people to help the party in a mass drive to forge signatures.

The method of forgery by the party was brazen. According to Ntsodo, they obtained names, identity document numbers, and cellphone numbers from a City of Cape Town jobseekers’ database and forged the corresponding signatures.

In its investigation of the claim, the City Press called 15 people on the MK Party’s supporter list and a shocking 14 denied they had signed it.

One would think that with such developments, the MK Party would be facing a kind of revolt by its own supporters – that many would be disassociating from it. After all, the frequency with which the party is removing and expelling members gives insight into its poor leadership and inevitable fractures.

Added to this are allegations of forgery, which pose not only a crisis of legitimacy for the party but also threatens the legitimacy of the country’s elections. However, this is not the case, for polls indicate that the MK Party will do very well in the upcoming elections, both nationally and in strategic provinces like KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, where the ANC is hanging by the skin of its teeth.

What reasons inform the continued support that MK Party enjoys and what does it say about South African politics? The one loud and very scary message that it communicates is that voters are so dejected by existing political parties that they want something new at all cost – regardless of the clear red flags that are evident.

It also speaks loudly to the cult of personality politics that are entrenched in our country. For supporters of the party, Zuma is a sympathetic figure, and this alone negates the shortcomings of his party.

Linked to this, it also speaks to politics of absolutism where a party is either absolutely the answer or absolutely the problem. Where the ANC, the Democratic Alliance, the Economic Freedom Fighters and other parties are deemed the absolute problem, then the MK Party becomes the absolute solution regardless of its glaring limitations.

These are dangerous politics. And these dangerous politics reflect the terrifying state of our nation.