Apartheid-era system behind the sudden rise of the MK Party – Mbeki

Former President Thabo Mbeki claimed that the sudden rise in support for the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) was caused by an apartheid-era system designed to destroy the African National Congress (ANC).

Addressing the inaugural conference of Umkhonto Wesizwe Liberation War Veterans, Mbeki said that the MK Party received a suspiciously high number of votes in the 2024 elections, especially in KwaZulu-Natal.

“You have a new organisation, called the MK Party, that suddenly gets this huge support in KZN, and Gauteng a bit, Mpumalanga a bit. Why?” he said.

“Suddenly, the ANC drops. Why has this population suddenly decided to abandon the ANC?”

“The activation of the  National Security Management System produced that result. That machinery had never been dismantled.”

Former President Jacob Zuma’s MK Party achieved unprecedented success for a new political party in the 2024 elections, having formed only a few months prior. 

MK emerged as the largest party in KwaZulu-Natal, with 45.35% votes, winning 37 seats. It failed to secure an outright majority, but drastically reduced the ANC’s support. 

The ANC lost 30 seats and received below 17% of the vote. MK also secured 14.58% of the national vote and 58 seats in the National Assembly. 

MK Party is widely regarded as the most successful new party in South Africa’s democratic history. 

In comparison, when the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was formed in 2013, at the 2014 elections the party took 6.35% of the national vote. 

When the Congress of the People (COPE) was formed in 2008 and in 2009, won 7.42% of the national vote. 

Mbeki asserts that this unprecedented initial success is not authentic, but rather a mechanism of apartheid. 

Responding to Mbeki, the MK Party said on social media that “The people of KZN were not instructed to vote MK. They rejected your ANC.”

“The people of the Western Cape voted DA for decades without being called ‘counter-revolutionaries’ – why MK?”

“The national security management system was a system put in place by the apartheid regime,” he said. “A very important part of that system was the agents that it infiltrated into society.” 

Mbeki said that in a small township community in George, for instance, there were found to be 93 “agents of the special branch” in the mid 90s. 

Apartheid agents infiltrated society – Mbeki

The MK Party’s impressive 2024 election results were, according to the former president, the result of the activation of the national security management system. 

Mbeki asserts that there are “counterrevolutionary” forces that are working to dismantle the ANC.

He said that he raised the issue that the national security management system had not been deactivated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

In the records of the TRC, it is stated that the National Security Management System (NSMS) was a secret organisation under the State Security Council.

It was originally used to target “terrorist groups” outside the country, but shifted its focus to its opponents within South Africa in the mid-1980s. 

It was found to be connected to several state-sanctioned murders. However, the records of the NSMS could not be traced by the TRC.

Allegedly, special instructions had been given to the NSMS to destroy all records in July 1993. This was largely successful, and very little documentation survived to provide insight into the workings of the organisation.

“That was the machinery that was used to produce that result in KZN,” he said. He asserts that the same force that was behind the Inkatha Freedom Party during violence between ANC and IFP supporters leading up to 1994. 

“That’s counterrevolution. That’s how it works,” he said. Mbeki claims this apartheid-regime force is working to destroy the ANC by supporting the MK Party. 

This began, according to Mbeki, when the counterrevolutionaries intervened in the ANC’s 2007 elective conference, leading to the election of Jacob Zuma as president.

According to the former president, this is all part of the “counterrevolution plan to make sure it achieves the objective of winning the war, whereas the ANC won a battle in 1994.”

MK Party reacts

The MK Party’s Military Veterans Association President, Pumlani Kubukeli, said he was “deeply disturbed’ by Mbeki’s speech.

“He is insinuating that members of the MK party are former apartheid spies or apartheid intelligence agents who have been reactivated,” he said.

“Any analytic mind can read between the lines that he is referring to the MK party President. In other words, the above statement is a blatant call for the assassination of the MK party President.”

He claimed that Mbeki “never cared” for the plight of MK soldiers, while Zuma took the care to form the Department of Military Veterans.