MK party strongly condemns the reckless and thoughtless tribal-infused statement by both the ANC and its impending coalition partner, the Democratic Alliance

30 May 2024

MK party unequivocally denounce the obnoxious and toxic remarks made by Gwede Mantashe of the ANC, supported by Helen Zille of the DA, which characterize the electoral success of the MK party in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) as a product of "Zulu tribalism." This deeply disrespectful and insulting perspective not only undermines the political agency of the Zulu people but also dismisses their legitimate political choices as mere tribal affiliations. Such divisive rhetoric portrays the Zulu people as non-thinking and sheep-like, following an outdated narrative that is both dangerous and offensive.

This recklessness and stupidity follow similarly offensive remarks from the so-called ANC Youth League President, who disparagingly suggested that Zulu people vote along tribal lines. Furthermore, the slow-thinking Ramaphosa also described the July 2021 riots in KZN, which followed the illegal and unlawful incarceration of President Zuma and tragically resulted in over 500 deaths, as "nothing but ethnic mobilization." This narrative, pushed by the current ANC leadership, dangerously ignores the historical lethality of tribalism, as evidenced by the bloodbath between the ANC and IFP in the early 1990s and the horrific genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

The MK party views these statements as reflective of a leadership in crisis, which, rather than addressing the real issues facing our nation such as unemployment, poverty, and loadshedding etc, resorts to scapegoating and blame-shifting—a typical behavior of a failed administration attempting to divert attention from its own shortcomings by invoking tribal sentiments. Adding insult to injury, Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance—a party that is nothing but a modern iteration of the apartheid-era National Party—has, like ANC, also labelled the MK party's success in KZN as "Zulu tribalism".

This common mentality, foolish and non sensical as it is, is not surprising as it is an open secret the two are on the verge of forming a coalition.

If political support in KZN was purely about tribal lines, for instance, why then has the IFP, which has been politically active in KZN since 1976, almost 50 years under a leader who was a former Bantustan prime minister, not won or winning 100% of the vote?

When the Eastern Cape gave its highest vote to the ANC during the administrations of uTata Mandela and the ever petty and cantankerous Thabo Mbeki, why was this support not labelled as a Xhosa-tribal vote? When KZN people voted ANC overwhelming, leading to ANC getting 2/3 under Mbeki, which he played marbles with, instead of using it to change the lives of the disenfranchised majority, where was "Zulu Tribalism" there?

The same DA racists who maimed, tortured, imprisoned, and even murdered black South Africans, and who remain unaccountable, are not called racial-tribalists for supporting the apartheid-era National Party, called the DA.

This intellectual laziness from both the ANC of Ramaphosa and its incoming coalition partner, the DA, enrages the MK party, as it threatens the building of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, and prosperous South Africa that the MK party strives to build. The truth is: The people of KZN are simply punishing the ANC of Ramaphosa for mismanaging the country by exacerbating unemployment, poverty, loadshedding, and the high costs of petrol and food, and for destroying the capacity of state-owned enterprises, and the DA for its apartheid reminiscence.

Civil society at large is sending a clear and an unambiguous message that they will no longer tolerate a government controlled by White Monopoly Capital, where wealth continues to be concentrated in white hands, with blacks receiving crumbs as by-standers in their own country. We call on all South Africans to reject these parties for their attempts to regress to the toxic times of tribalism and racism and join the MK party in calling for an end to their embarrassing immaturity.

Issued by Nhlamulo Ndhlela, Media and Communications, MK Party, 30 May 2024