Jacob Zuma and MK Party: just noise or will it really make a big impact?

A voting station in KZN. Photo credit: GovernmentZA via Flickr

Since former President Jakob Zuma’s announcement last October of his involvement in MKP, there has been a lot of noise about the party’s impact on KwaZulu-Natal and national politics. 

This seemed to reach fever pitch recently, when a poll was released by the Social Research Foundation indicating that MKP could get as much as 24% in the KZN provincial election on 29 May. According to the same poll, ANC support was down to 25% with the DA% at 15%, the EFF at 5% and the IFP at 24%  

“The ANC’s house is on fire, it is finished. They are in shock”, warned one analyst. “This indicates a total game change in South African politics”, said another, pointing to this poll as proof that MKP had “halved ANC support in the province in the last four months”. 

Although there can be little doubt that Jacob Zuma’s involvement with MKP will draw a significant number of votes in KZN, some of these predictions and analyses are problematic. 

It is important to note that the SRF poll sampled 820 respondents telephonically. In a province with over 5.7 million voters that is an extremely small poll. Telephone polls are generally less reliable than in-person polling, thus the self-declared margin of error was 5%. (This means that you could add or subtract 5% to any result.) 

However, let’s assume that this poll is a true reflection of current voter support in the province.

Is it then correct that MKP halved the ANC support in just four months?

Well, yes and no. 

Last year IPSOS released a huge, in-person poll. The field work was done in June and July 2023 - months before MKP registered at the IEC and Jacob Zuma’s public involvement with the party. The IPSOS poll indicated that the ANC was already then sitting at 22%, the DA at 13%, the EFF also at 13% and the IFP at 17%. 

So, the ANC support was in fact the same – or even a few percentage points lower in June of last year than the SRF poll of two weeks ago. Significantly the IPSOS poll indicated that almost 20% of respondents said that either they didn’t know who to vote for or didn’t want to answer. A further 8% said that they would not vote. 

What we can assume is that many of the “unsure or won’t answer” of middle of last year were disillusioned ANC voters who have now found a home in MKP.  The point being that the ANC has known for more than a year that they are in big trouble in KZN and Zuma’s ‘Lazarus’ performance has only added to their trouble – it was not the cause of it.  

Perhaps because of the ANC’s bad performance the EFF has also shown steady growth since the 2019 elections when they received 4% support. According to IPSOS they were sitting at 13% in the middle of last year.  If the recent SRF poll is correct, it would indicate significant losses for the EFF, almost certainly to MKP. This would make sense since many disillusioned ANC voters would have gravitated to the EFF and - given their similar ideologies - are now happy to support MKP. 

So, what are the implications of all of this for the province?

There is no doubt that neither the ANC nor the IFP would be able to get an outright majority, thus there will have to be a coalition arrangement. At this stage an ANC-IFP coalition could just about reach the 50% mark. An IFP/DA or IFP/Multiparty Charter coalition will fall short of 50% as would an EFF/MKP or ANC/EFF coalition.

Personally, I believe that an ANC/IFP/DA coalition would be ideal, not only for unity in that province, but also for the desperately needed improved service delivery.

Although most of the focus has been on KZN, it is worthwhile remembering that there are also other provinces with significant numbers of Zulu speaking voters who could be attracted to Jacob Zuma’s MKP. Just over 19% of the people of Gauteng  and 24,5% of Mpumalangans  are isiZulu speakers. 

If MKP indeed succeeds in getting 24% of the vote in KZN, that would result in approximately 5% or 20 seats in the National Assembly – about half of what the EFF has currently. However, if MKP can also garner some support in Gauteng and Mpumalanga, it could take another few percentage points off the ANC support nationally, which might just see the need for an ANC/IFP/DA coalition also on national level.