Floyd Shivambu is set to soon unveil a new political party after falling out of favour in uMkhonto weSizwe party which until recently he served as Secretary General. Shivambu’s removal by MKP follows months of speculation that started when he was insulted on social media by Duduzile Zuma-Sambutha who is one of the party’s MPs and former President Jacob Zuma’s daughter.
While MKP cited Shivambu’s Easter visit to fugitive Sherphard Bushiri’s church in Malawi.
MKP said the visit had brought the party into disrepute forcing it to demote remove Shivambu and deploy him to parliament where he’s yet to be sworn in and seems unlikely he would considering his recent demeanour and Monday’s comments Zuma who addressed the party’s youth rally in Claremont Kwazulu-Natal where he warned members against blindly following the former EFF deputy president.
“If you look seriously, you’ll realise that if we have one of us, one of us, hmm, one of us, who goes astray, we don’t beg them, we don’t. Let me just tell you that there’s now been seven people who occupied that position of Secretary General because we don’t tolerate nonsense. people who are still here with us I’m told some of them would be protesting because we took a particular decision. there were people in the past who may have had problems or done wrong things in one way or the other because most of them messed up big time and we opted not expose them publicly to avoid embarrassing them but we acted in the best interest of the organisation. you may be big, loved or feel special in any other way, we don’t care, we don’t care, we talk about our party.
“I see some of you listen to this nonsense and even write about it, since when have you become the High Command (highest decision making structure in MKP after Zuma), you’re not the High Command, its the high command that deals with those issues if you don’t know why don’t you come and ask what happened and I am talking to the elders here and not the children because they are the ones who, I hear some of them would be protesting, we are fighting for the land here and don’t have time to defend individuals,” said Zuma leading to speculation that Shivambu is as good as expelled from MKP.
Shivambu himself suggested he was a free agent when he addressed a rally of relatively unknown trade union Maanda-Ashu Workers Union of South Africa (MAWUSA) in Alexandra outside Johannesburg where he also did not acknowledge Zuma as he had been doing since leaving the EFF and seemed to be promoting a new slogan, Mayibuye iAfrika.
“So comrades you will know that until a week or so ago I had a full-time responsibility as a Secretary General of uMkhonto weSizwe.Now I do not have any full-time responsibility. So I said to the President I’m coming to volunteer to be doing work of Mawusa in the whole of South Africa.I came to volunteer to go and assist the growth and presence of Mawusa in the provinces of Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape, and the province of KwaZulu-Natal. So Mawusa must have members in all the regions of KwaZulu-Natal, from Utugela region to Amajuba, to Ethekwini, to iLembe, to Uugu, to Zululand to Mkhanyakude. (4:22) Mawusa must have members and activists in all the regions of the Eastern Cape.There must be members of Mawusa in Joe Davi region, in Chris Hani region, in Amathole OR Tambo, in Alfred Nin Zoe, in Nelson Mandela Bay, in Sarabatma. There must be existence of Mawusa in all the regions of the Western Cape, in Cape Metro, in Ogabeg, (4:56) in the Southern Cape, in Central Karoo and in the West Coast,” said Shivambu.
Mzwanele Manyi who was also demoted from being MKP’s parliamentary Chief Whip to an ordinary MP is among those rumoured to be working with Shivambu in the plans to form a new organisation swiftly denied any involvement or that he was leaving MKP.
“Can the evil people please stop their nonsense.I’m still a member of the MK party. No intentions of resigning whatsoever.And also this Twitter handle of Sofi Mukweni.I t’s actually a fake one. If you go to Sofi’s main account, you will not find that nonsense. So please people, we’ve got work to do.We’ve got two thirds majority to attain. Stop distracting us. We are busy.We are building MK,” said Manyi in a video posted on X on Tuesday.