“There’s a real possibility that there will be a breakaway party soon from the MK party.” That is the warning from Isaac Leshona, former President Jacob Zuma’s private secretary. Leshona says Secretary General Floyd Shivambu is facing “a lot” of animosity. “He came in as a celebrity, unfortunately, and it’s proving to be detrimental in the party as well as for him. Now he’s facing resistance.” Leshona says Shivambu’s arrival meant that there were also people coming in from the EFF whom he promoted over and above people who’d been working the ground in provinces as well as in regions. He calls MKP’s poor performance in a recent by-election (down from 54% to 19%) an indictment of the SG. He also slams Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla for taking “advantage of her proximity to the President to whisper sometimes untruths into his ear and also to sideline….comrades whom she doesn’t like”. As for the performance of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Leshona says: “Nothing will happen if we still pussyfoot around issues of corruption. We still have corrupt ministers. We still have corrupt ANC National Executive Committee members at the forefront of things. So until the ANC takes a hard stance against corruption, nothing will change.”
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Edited transcript of the interview ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Chris Steyn (00:02.911)
According to a recent poll and some by-election results, former President Jacob Zuma’s MKP has been losing some support. We get an inside view from Mr. Isaac Leshona, who has worked closely with Mr. Zuma. Welcome, Sir.
Isaac (00:20.141)
Thank you Chris for having me.
Chris Steyn (00:23.457)
Firstly, sir, what is or was your role in MKP?
Isaac (00:29.75)
Okay, my role as the private secretary entailed me to handle correspondence and further interpret this correspondence on behalf of President Jacob Zuma. I also arranged meetings with stakeholders, provincial teams, regional teams, and I would also chair some of these meetings if they were too many for Mr. Zuma to handle alone. I also attended National Executive meetings as well as Top 6 meetings. So essentially, prior to and after the elections, I was at the centre of MKP operations because MKP was highly centralised at that time, particularly.
Chris Steyn (01:25.079)
But recently there has been an issue with your position. What caused that?
Isaac (01:35.662)
Well, I would not want to go into the details of the issues surrounding my position. As far as I am concerned, I’m still the private secretary. However, there was a letter issued by MKP in which they say I was dismissed seven months ago, which was a total fallacy. I was never dismissed seven months ago. So if I am dismissed, I was only dismissed at that time they issued that letter, if indeed I am dismissed. But as far as I’m concerned, I am the one who has initiated steps to remedy my grievances that I experienced as a private secretary, not the other way around.
Chris Steyn (02:18.816)
Do you think that letter had anything to do with the letter you wrote in which you were highly critical of Ms Duduzile Zuma?
Isaac (02:29.236)
Yes, that letter was just a reactionary ploy or a reaction by the people who wrote it for self-seeking ends and for self-preservation. Hence the letter claiming that I was fired and I was a mere assistant. It was just a self-serving and -saving ploy.
Chris Steyn (03:07.254)
Well, you have, or you were definitely in a position on the inside to tell us what the real problems at MKP are.
Isaac (03:17.237)
Yes, MKP from inception experienced divisions which would happen for any party. There are teething problems that would happen to any party. And we managed these problems up until the elections. Hence, we pulled the historic 15%.
However, after the elections, a few months after the elections, the current SG Floyd Shivambu was brought in and this exacerbated MKP problems. I personally flagged the appointment because I knew what it could cause to the structures and the stability of MK party.
When Mr. Floyd Shivambu came in, he never bothered to consult with people who were in his office, the former SG, former DSG. He never bothered to consult with me at the office of the President, although we were the ones who were aware of the situation on the ground.
Mr. Floyd Shivambu’s coming in also meant that there were also people coming in from the EFF and he promoted them over and above people who’d been working the ground in provinces as well as in regions. So this has caused a lot of animosity.
And now there’s a real risk for the party to break away. There’s a real possibility that there will be a breakaway party soon from the MK party. I speak this with authority because I’m privy of a lot of information. And many, many comrades still confide in me, you know, in this regard.
So the indictment also, as you mentioned earlier, is that there are polls, but over and above the polls, the elections results to show that MKP is losing ground. We see in uMhlayabuyalingana, our MKP had 54% at the time of the national elections. Now it came back with a mere 19%.
Isaac (05:42.538)
This is an indictment to the CEO of the party, who in this instance happens to be the Secretary General, who happens to be comrade Floyd Shivambu. He has to account for how the party can come from those numbers to a mere 19%.
But over and above that, this tendency of MKP of recycling leadership from municipalities, to national and parliament, recycling ANC members, recycling EFF members, while we have an opportunity to bring about fresh leadership, who would inject fresh ideas, causes communities and the nation at large to lose confidence because they voted in for a new baby and not for an ANC or an EFF 2.0.
So if these things are not taken into consideration, we are really at the brink of catastrophe as the MKP party.
Chris Steyn (06:50.186)
What about the role of Duduzile?
Isaac (06:54.395)
Well, Duduzile has traditionally played an oversized role. She has taken advantage of her proximity to the President to whisper sometimes untruths into his ear and also to sideline, you know, comrades whom she doesn’t like in regions, in provinces, even in the Women’s League and the Youth League. You know, many comrades have complained about her. They still do even to this day.
And because she has not been brought to order, she has the guts, as I indicated in the letter, to call the SG, using profanities by that matter and calling the SG, you know, incompetent.
I don’t necessarily think that Floyd Shivambu is incompetent. It’s just that the way he wanted to implement his strategy for MKP was a mismatch for the party. You know, he just needed to consider many other factors because MKP is not built like any other party, it’s not built like the EFF, neither is it built like the ANC Youth League where he played a role at some point, you know. Yeah, and he failed to acclimatise himself to MKP. He came in as a celebrity, unfortunately, and it’s proving to be detrimental in the party as well as for him. Now he’s facing resistance. Yeah.
Chris Steyn (08:19.808)
What do you believe needs to be done urgently to bring stability to MKP?
Isaac (08:26.107)
Well, MKP really needs to call in the people who managed to bring it 15%. There were people who were organising, whether we like it or not. There were people who were organising and there were people who were integral. So MKP needs to call in those people and really ask what they managed to do or what we managed to do then. How we managed to pull all these differing opinions and views and factions together to work towards a common goal. We need to look back and say that what did you guys do right? What were the dynamics? How did you handle them? And how can we move forward? You know, because those people understood and understand MKP better than the ones who are coming over now and who are given leadership roles.
MKP also needs to really try to inject new blood into leadership. I mean, if you look at MKP and parliament, we’ve recycled old faces, you know, from ANC, from the SOEs. If you look at what we are trying to do with our leadership in municipalities, even in provinces, we are recycling people coming in with their ANC or EFF baggage. This only does not destabilise and demotivate cadres within who were with MKP from day one. It also portrays us as ANC or EFF 2.0, which is a turn off for our voters and potential voters. So we really do need an overhaul as MKP.
Chris Steyn (10:25.738)
Meanwhile, what do you believe are the biggest or most pressing challenges facing South Africa currently, sir?
Isaac (10:33.41)
Okay, we have unemployment. We have high inequality and we have crime. These are also intrinsically linked to a poor performing economy. And South Africa is poor performing by design. I mean, we are exporting millions of tons of raw ore, manganese from the Northern Cape, chrome and platinum from the Northwest, whilst job indicators their say more than 50% of the youth are unemployed. We are supposed to be processing these locally and closer to the source, closer to the mines. And this will take political will. Political will, in terms of actively pursuing companies that will process these.
Political will even to fund new ventures to process these locally, as well as political will to fight corruption, which also plays a huge role, you know, in the deteriorating of your ESKOM’s for example, which need to be properly functioning for these factories, for these processing plants to function, to function optimally.
There’s also the issue of tourism. Tourism faces headwinds if levels of crime are up. People will shy away from South Africa. But we know that South Africa has the most beautiful of tourism attractions.
Yeah, and these can be located directly to the failure of the African National Congress and its inability to take the people of South Africa seriously.
Chris Steyn (12:35.562)
I was just going to ask you, how would you rate the performance of the Government of National Unity in as far as addressing the needs of the people?
Isaac (12:46.219)
Well, it’s the same old, same old. Nothing will happen if we still pussyfoot around issues of corruption. We still have corrupt ministers. We still have corrupt ANC National Executive Committee members at the forefront of things. So until ANC takes a hard stance against corruption, nothing will change.
We also see the emphatic return of load shedding. So we thought that, okay, now they were getting something right. But then here we are again at load shedding.
And also the mismatch of ideology between the ANC and the Democratic Alliance causes the GNU to get off a wrong footing. The DA doesn’t feel that inequality is a big issue. It doesn’t see the need for economic redress, while the ANC has that as its central focus in terms of ideology. So these two competing ideologies cannot soberly sit at the table and bring forth any tangible solutions for the majority of our people.
Chris Steyn (14:13.674)
Thank you. That was Mr. Isaac Leshona of MKP speaking to BizNews and I am Chris Steyn. Thank you, sir.
Isaac (14:21.632)
Thank you, Chris.
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