Durban — The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) has moved to assuage fears of political instability or unrest after their dominance in last week’s elections caused a flurry of emigration enquiries – many from Durban.
“There’s no such thing, it is purely a lie,” said MKP’s head of programmes Musa Mkhize.
On Friday the fledgling party which obliterated the ANC and other political rivals in KwaZulu-Natal and emerged as the third strongest party nationally, said it had a clear mandate from the people, respected the rule of law, its own people, investors and people from all countries.
“UmKhonto weSizwe is here to serve the people of this country and mainly those who are willing to make this country work. The party is not a threat to anyone, but is a strength to South Africans, to everybody in South Africa,” said Mkhize.
In an unprecedented result, the party led by former president Jacob Zuma deprived the ANC of an outright majority for the first time in democratic South Africa.
Police Minister Bheki Cele deployed extra police officers from other provinces to KZN, claiming to be acting on intelligence information, to prevent riots and political instability.
Emigration agents told the Independent on Saturday that since last Sunday, when the final election results were announced, they had been inundated with calls from people panicking about the future of the country.
Tracey Lawrence whose company, Australian Migration Specialists is based in Johannesburg, said that “interestingly enough” many of the queries were from Durban.
“I think they’re very worried about this MK situation and they are just wanting to look at what the options are. They don’t think that it’s going to be an environment that’s conducive to living in,” she said.
Lawrence said apart from fears of political instability under MKP, there was a range of other things that made them nervous.
“People, I think, have just reached the tipping point, there are too many things that are not going right and they don’t see a future for themselves and particularly for their children,” she said.
Some of the discussions with people from Durban also revealed their fears over an ANC, MK and EFF coalition government.
“They’re worried that if there’s a coalition with MK there’ll be a way to change the Constitution. People are seriously, seriously worried about these things and it’s not like pie in the sky worries, it’s really valid worries,” said Lawrence.
She said there was a different “trigger for everyone” but concerns over the National Health Insurance, corruption, unemployment and now the political future of the country were some of the issues which drove South Africans to look for greener pastures.
“Our enquiries over the last 12 months have been pretty regular and we definitely do see an uptick when there’s hectic load shedding. When we’re in stage 5 and 6 of load shedding, we definitely see an uptick.”
Breytenbachs Immigration Consultants director JP Breytenbach said they had identified several issues which triggered an uptick in queries from South Africans who want to make a temporary or permanent move to the UK and this included the elections.
Breytenbach said that there would be an “inevitable interest shift to emigrating” when events created uncertainty about issues like safety, job security and financial stability.
“With each tension event in South Africa, the number of enquiries regarding moving abroad jumps significantly. These events include the likes of load shedding, political tension and prospective enactment of new legislation which might be viewed as detrimental to some, economic tension and, of course, political reactions such as the Durban unrest that occurred in 2021.”
However, Mkhize said South Africans had nothing to fear because MKP was committed to the rule of law.
“Having to exercise our democratic right when we are not happy, we are doing it within the rule of the law in courts. It’s within the same democracy that brought whoever is here in this country to make it work, so it’s actually in line with all of us without violating anybody’s rights. We’ve done a good thing and are standing in the right direction.”
He rejected the police’s intelligence which prompted the deployment of extra security officers to the province, saying that Cele had failed to fight crime, violence and gender-based violence.
“They were not able to create jobs, they were not able to develop black people, to put them in a business space, economic growth, mainly because of the poor intelligence that has been run in this country.
“Clearly that intelligence is intelligence that is imposed and intelligence that is working for a few, not the majority of people in this country. Such intelligence will be proven (to be wrong) and it’s going to turn away good investments that will benefit the people of this country,” said Mkhize.
Independent on Saturday