Durban — Former president Jacob Zuma is not expected to appeal against his expulsion from the ANC, according to high-profile sources close to him.
The ANC expelled Zuma following his public association with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) in December after a fallout with the incumbent party president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
However, Zuma’s close allies say he is not going to appeal his expulsion from the party he joined just when he was 17 years old.
“Zuma will not appeal his expulsion from the ANC. He wanted them to remove him from the party so that he goes out and builds the MK Party,” said a member of the ANC, who currently serves in the National Executive Committee (NEC), the highest decision-making body between conferences, held every five years.
The ANC, which came to power in 1994 after a decades-long fight against the apartheid government, became the first liberation movement to axe its former president.
“Zuma remains the most popular person who was part of the ANC.
“His sacking will surely lead to the ANC losing many voters. It is worse because we are heading to the 2026 local government elections,” said another ANC NEC member.
The ANC dropped from 57% of the vote in 2019 to 40.2% during the May 29 elections.
Its drop was attributed to the rise of the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), which Zuma endorsed in December and supported in a spirited elections campaign.
Zuma, 82, was ANC president from 2009 to 2017, a party that was once led by the first president, Nelson Mandela, in 1994.
All attempts to reach Zuma and his foundation, the JG Zuma Foundation, were unsuccessful.
The MKP party accused the ANC of running a “kangaroo court”.
“We don’t know why you have a party and then you argue for your membership when you have taken a conscious decision to leave the ANC,” ANC secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, told a press conference.
He added: “You have brought us below 50%. We are grappling with that.”
Zuma has 21 days to appeal against his expulsion, Mbalula said.
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