Former president says that South Africa shouldn’t have a president

Former president Jacob Zuma, the current leader of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, said the concept of a president was brought to South Africa by colonisers and shouldn’t exist.

Zuma was speaking at a meeting held with the Limpopo Provincial structures on 26 January. 

“The oppressors came here, and they undermined our amakhosi (kings) who were ruling the whole of Africa, and took it away,” he said. 

Zuma said that the structure of traditional leadership was much more effective than the system of government that exists today. 

“There is a king, then there are others below him that he is in charge of, and then there is the population, who were reporting to the traditional leaders,” he said.

“During that time, there were no killings. No people were dying for sweet nothing because from the king going down, everybody knew that if they did anything wrong, they’re in trouble.”

This statement is against recorded history. Wars and killings were seen between indigenous groups, primarily driven by competition for resources, livestock, and land.

Following the arrival of the Dutch in 1652, these conflicts escalated into resistance against European expansion. 

Regardless, Zuma doubled down. “Abelungu (white people) decided to remove those leaders, all of them, and introduced the president. I don’t know what it means.”

He said that under the rule of the MK Party, he would redesign this system, ultimately giving sovereign power to traditional leaders.

“We will have the traditional leaders having the last word in our country,” he said. He added that the concept of government can remain, but it must be changed. 

“There must be governments who are reporting to the people who lead this country,” he said, referring to traditional leaders. 

Zuma was president of the country for nine years, but was compelled to resign in 2018, under pressure from the ANC, which threatened him with a vote of no confidence. 

‘We should have given power back to the amakhosi in 1994′

This is not the first time that Zuma has called for the abolition of the “western” judicial system and for the installation of a constitutional system that gives traditional leaders more authority.

In 2024, he said that amakhosi should be a sovereign authority with central executive powers, according to Business Day.

“When we got our freedom, we should have taken back the land and reinstalled the authority of traditional leadership, like in other countries where there are amakhosi as heads of state,” he said in 2024.

Again, he emphasised that the amakhosi ruled the land peacefully until the colonial period.

The former president further told the Limpopo conference that he is overwhelmed by people visiting his private residence to discuss issues, and said this must change. 

He said there is a need to observe structures where responsibility is shared across the MK party and through tiers of leadership, echoing traditional structures.

“Ever since uMkhonto weSizwe was established, I can’t sleep in my home, because everybody comes from everywhere,” he said, 

This, he says, must come to an end, and others in the party’s leadership must be the first port of call for branches, who will then relay information to the president.

“These comrades that have been identified, they are now carrying a heavy task of ensuring that they link with the branches, by linking with the secretary of the branch,” he said.