Makhosi Khoza has yet again switched positions in her never-ending game of political musical chairs.

The former ANC MP has gone back to politics just in time for the general elections. She told SowetanLIVE on Tuesday that she had gone back to her party, African Democratic Change (ADeC).

Khoza retired from politics in April after being forced out of ADeC due to infighting.

She said her decision to leave the party was a strategy against the two members, Lufuno Gogoro and Mpho Ramakatsa, who, according to her, had infiltrated ADeC.

“We have all these freedoms, you can retire yesterday and tomorrow you can decide that you still have some energy left and can still go back. I can unretire,” said Makhosi Khoza.

“It was a strategic retreat. But if I had said that, those guys would have stuck around hoping that I’m gonna come back. But when I said I’m retiring from politics, they left. You will recall that at the time when I left it was because we had opportunists that were trying to hijack ADeC and they were expecting that I was going to take them to court and end up like COPE [Congress of the People].”

Khoza resigned as OUTA’s head of local government programme last week citing that she could not afford being away from politics as the civil society movement did not possess enough powers for her to fight certain causes.

She said, in her resignation letter, that she had been trying to secure a meeting with Zweli Mkhize, the minister of cooperative governance & traditional affairs, after being “painfully” made aware of the “total collapse of municipalities” as incorruptible public servants are being fired.

“The extent of the indifference of the current political regime, abrupt and painful end of public servants’ careers with high moral stamina, who refused to take unlawful instructions from their corrupt political bosses.”

According to Khoza, this issue as well as many others, including education and ensuring that those implicated in the state capture commission are brought to book, can only be fought in parliament.

Asked if she believes ADeC would receive enough votes on May 8 to ensure the party’s presence in parliament, Khoza said she could only hope.

The party claims it boasts over 30,000 members as well as members of civil society movements.

“It’s the South Africans who will have to decide, we can’t speak for them. They must go to the ballot and decide who do they elect. If they don’t elect us it’s okay, we will persevere. We will build one brick by one brick until South Africans understand that we are standing for them,” said Khoza.

The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) confirmed that ADeC was registered for the upcoming general elections but Khoza said that was not done merely to be "secure in comfort".

“We are in a state of patronage politics at the moment, people are going to parliament for packages. I’m not in politics because I’m going for package, I’m going there because I want to serve this country,” she said.