‘He will be disciplined later’: Mantashe on Zuma’s possible ANC expulsion

ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe says disciplinary action will be taken against the party's former president Jacob Zuma, who has embarked on a new political adventure while remaining an ANC member, after the 2024 national and provincial elections.

Last month, Zuma announced he would not campaign for the ANC nor would he vote for it, but was adamant he remained a member of the governing party.

Mantashe this week said Zuma was playing political games and knew his time with the ANC was over by working for a different party.   

“He knows he cannot be a member of the ANC and vote, campaign for something else. He knows he was the president of the ANC,” he said on 702.

Mantashe believed that should disciplinary processes against Zuma for “breaching the ANC constitution” take place before the elections, it could affect the party's campaign. 

“When people ask me for advice on this issue, I say: let us focus on the work of the ANC. If you put life into that [Zuma disciplinary], it can derail you from the campaign of the ANC.

“Record activities of Zuma. At a correct point you call him to [a] disciplinary, basically to formalise that he has walked away from the ANC. Zuma took action and he knows he has broken his membership of the ANC. The ANC will have to formalise that. It will be attended to later. He will be disciplined later.”

While the ANC leadership has been adamant Zuma’s MK party campaign marked his exit from the party, the former president insists he remains a member.

Zuma addressed a crowd in Pietermaritzburg earlier this month and said: “I will vote for MK, but I will not leave the ANC, I will die there. The ANC is different from other political parties. It was built by our ancestors, religious leaders and intellectuals as a party opposing white people who did not want us to have rights.”

As Zuma said he would die an ANC member, some members of the party paraded a makeshift coffin on which was written “RIP Zuma” at Mbombela Stadium during the ANC's January 8 anniversary celebrations.

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