Durban — The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) is yet to decide who among its “capable” cadres will be members of the new provincial cabinet.
The MKP, led by former president Jacob Zuma, is expected to appoint a number of ex-members of Parliament in the national legislature, and members in provincial legislature in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and Mpumalanga, where it received huge support.
According to party spokesperson Ndaba Gcwabaza, Zuma will decide who will be appointed as he wants trustworthy and skilled people to deliver services.
“We have many capable people in MK but have not decided who should be the premier in KZN as our focus has always been to run our campaign to get people to vote MK. It is after the results have been announced that we will talk about who goes where in terms of political appointments and administration,” said Gcwabaza.
Since its formation, the MKP has been operating with interim structures. Gcwabaza said this was done to get volunteers to focus on campaigning instead of positions.
“As you can see, the MK volunteers have done the wonderful work,” he said.
The former ANC MP said Zuma has always emphasised that once the MKP took over power, it would put in skilled people to fill the government administration.
“We have enough skilled people in the party who can be deployed into those strategic positions – administration in particular – because it is the administration that facilitates the delivery of the services to the people,” he said.
He would not be drawn into revealing whether the MKP would remove ANC-aligned people from strategic administration positions.
When asked if the MKP was happy with the level of skills among the current government officials, Gcwabaza said: “We would not be where we are in terms of service delivery if everybody in the administration was properly skilled for the job.
“I am talking about water, infrastructure, electricity, roads and so on.’
Gcwabaza said under Zuma’s presidency between 2009 and 2018, the country did well in terms of service delivery as the president had unveiled plans and started building infrastructure.
“You would probably know about the roadworks, the dams and the two universities that were built.
“His strategy was in terms of the development plan; by 2030 we would have completed all of that and of course, he did his bit during the nine years that he was in power and there is evidence of all of that,” he said.
Since the MKP had failed to score more than 50% of the votes in KZN, the party would now have to go into coalition to form a government, but in this regard the DA and Freedom Front Plus were not being considered.
Gcwabaza said that before the elections, the party did not speak about coalitions as its main target was scoring a two-thirds majority nationally.
“Those who agree with us, we will run with them [but the] DA not at all, there is not a chance in hell that MK will ever consider working with the DA because there are enough black organisations that we think we can talk to and agree with.”
He said the MKP was not taking a racist stance by ruling out partnering with DA and FF+, which he labelled neo-liberal organisations from the apartheid past.
“They formed their organisations based on the apartheid past and they carry that baggage.
“We are not angry with the ANC at all, we just want to pursue what MK wants to do, guided by the mandate that we got from the people, and that is why the president (Zuma) delivered the people’s mandate,” said Gcwabaza.
He said the MKP would not compromise on its mandate of expropriating land without compensation because “the question of land is a matter that the people have always been talking about”.
“Black people, the African majority, understand that they were dispossessed of their land by the European settlers,” he said.
He said if the MKP went into a coalition with any party, including the ANC, such a partnership would be in compliance with the country’s laws regarding such “co-governance”.
“It is not about us disrupting or not disrupting. It’s about guiding us to deliver services to the people of KwaZulu-Natal,” he said.
University of the Western Cape political analyst Bheki Mngomezulu advised parties who would run the provincial government to exercise caution when it came to appointing administrators.
“What you do here is to apply meritocracy; you appoint people based on their requisite skills and knowledge, especially when it come to technocrats, your civil servants.”
Sunday Tribune