As South Africa heads into yet another post-apartheid election, ruling African National Congress (ANC) - which has been riven by divisions in the democratic era - faces yet another threat from a splinter party.

The emergence of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party is not a new phenomenon in the ANC as there have been breakaway parties in the last few elections.

In a strange twist of irony most of these splinter parties are formed before elections.

The Congress of the People (Cope) was formed in 2008 after the ANC decided to recall former president Thabo Mbeki.

The ANC National Executive Committee took that decision after a marathon meeting in Johannesburg.

When Cope was formed South Africa was preparing to hold elections in 2009.

The party was launched with fanfare amid speculation that it could pose a serious challenge to the ANC in the elections of 2009.

The ANC has on average managed to get between 10 million and 11 million votes since the 1994 elections.

When Cope contested the elections that year it managed to get 30 seats in the National Assembly.

This was at the time the number of seats for the ANC dropped from 279 in 2004 to 264 in 2009.

In 2013 the EFF - yet another off-shoot from the ANC - was formed and it consisted of former members of the ANC and ANC Youth League.

The EFF contested the elections in 2014 and it managed to get 25 seats in the national assembly.

It became the third largest party in Parliament in 2014. The Democratic Alliance was the second largest party after it got 89 seats.

At the same time the number of ANC seats in the national assembly continued to drop after it managed to secure 249 seats. This was down from 264 seats in the previous elections.

In 2019 the EFF increased its caucus in Parliament after its seats grew from 25 to 44.

The ANC seats dropped further from 249 to 230 in the 2019 elections.

Dr Sizo Nkala from the University of Johannesburg said the emergence of splinter parties may cause harm to the ANC in the elections.

This was also shown during the local government elections in 2021 when the ANC lost some of the metros in Gauteng and municipalities in other parts of the country.

“I think the rise of splinter parties has the potential to the do the ANC electoral support significant harm in this year’s elections. The local elections have shown beyond any reasonable doubt that the ANC is losing support especially in the major centres. Parties like ActionSA and Patriotic Alliance ate into ANC support in most of the metropolitan areas resulting in hung municipalities.

“The emergence of the MK party will definitely give the ANC a big headache. The ANC has already taken the MK party to court on several cases seeking nullification of the party’s registration and to block it from using the logo it claims as its own. If the MK party did not pose any threat to the ANC it wouldn’t have paid huge sums of money for these court cases. I think the MK can damage the ANC’s fortunes in KwaZulu-Natal, especially as it is led by Jacob Zuma, a former president of the ANC,” said Nkala.

Nkala said Zuma built a strong support base in the province and this would impact on the ANC support in the elections.

On December 16 last year, Zuma announced that he will vote for a new party, but will remain a member of the ANC.

The ANC NEC decided in January that Zuma must be suspended while party processes will be instituted.

The ANC has said it would allow its internal processes to unfold on Zuma.

Zuma has been campaigning for the MK party in the last six months and the party has contested some of the by-elections in the country.

However, its true test will be on election day.

But senior leaders of the ANC are confident of getting above 50% despite some of the polls predicting it will drop below that number and this would force it to get into a coalition.

Cope may have lost its support, but the EFF has grown its support and the MK party is yet to contest the elections nationally and at provincial level.

IOL Politics