Jacob Zuma’s new party emerges a big winner in South Africa vote
- The ex-president, who was banned from standing for election, staged a startling comeback, taking a chunk of the ballot from the once untouchable ANC
- Despite facing scandals and corruption allegations, the charismatic Zuma remains popular particularly among the country’s more than 10 million fellow Zulus
South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma staged a surprise comeback at the head of an upstart party that is only a few months old but already the country’s third largest.
Zuma is 82, he was banned from standing in this week’s general election because of a contempt conviction and his former rule is synonymous with the capture of the state by corrupt interests.
But at the reins of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), a party founded barely eight months ago, he has taken a huge chunk out of the once untouchable ANC’s majority and stormed his home province.
On Friday afternoon, with 60 per cent of the votes counted, Zuma’s MK was leading the ANC by 43 per cent to 18 in the electoral battle ground province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), a huge pool of votes.
In the national race, the newcomers had more than 12 per cent, putting them in third behind the ANC, whose vote collapsed from more than 57 per cent in 2019 to 42 per cent on Wednesday, and the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA).