Politics South Africa's ANC revokes ex-President Zuma's membership

South Africa's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has withdrawn former President Jacob Zuma's membership. The founding of a new party by an ANC member a few weeks before parliamentary elections in May violated the ruling party's constitution.

This was decided by an ANC disciplinary committee. Zuma (82) has 21 days to appeal against the decision.

In the parliamentary elections in May, Zuma's uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MK), which was only founded in December 2023, received 14% of the vote. The ANC, on the other hand, suffered a massive electoral loss of around 40% - losing around 17 percentage points since the previous vote in 2019.

This meant that for the first time in 30 years, the ANC could no longer form the government alone and had to enter into a coalition. Political commentators attribute the ANC's historic loss of power to the re-establishment of the MK, among other things.

The new party is "dangerous and appeals to extremists", ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbalula explained the committee's decision to expel Zuma from the ruling party. The MK has the potential to destabilize the political situation in South Africa, the Secretary General continued.

Zuma was a member of the ANC for decades and South Africa's president from 2009 to 2018. He had to resign from office due to serious allegations of corruption. In 2021, Zuma was sentenced to 15 months in prison. His imprisonment triggered serious unrest in which 350 people died and hundreds of stores were looted and set on fire. Since then, Zuma has been seen as a powerful politician who, according to critics, does not shy away from using violence to achieve his political goals.