The gloves are off as a powerful church group and Jacob Zuma's MK party head to court amid accusations of betrayal.
“We are going to expose everything. We are going to court to challenge what MK has done to us. Their actions is a betrayal and a breach of agreement between the All Africa Alliance Movement (AAAM) and MK,” a senior source in AAAM told IOL.
“We made MK popular through our numbers and supported the party. The Zuma family was completely bankrupt before we came out to support them. Now they are arrogant and power hungry. Zuma's daughter runs it like a family cult and we feel very used,” the source said.
The showdown between the two parties comes in the wake of the firing of 15 members of the AAAM from MK's parliamentary caucus last week. The movement had previously thrown their support behind MK and Jacob Zuma before the elections citing a groundswell of over 14 million members. But, relations quickly soured between the two parties after the elections, with the current spat now heading to court.
"We opened a charge against them. They are thugs and should not have been in Parliament representing MK in the first place. They were not on our list and when we realised who they were in Parliament we immediately removed them. We welcome the opportunity in court," MK spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela told IOL in his response.
The AAAM previously announced former chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng as their presidential candidate for the May elections — only to later learn he had not endorsed this.
'We were shocked when he later said he predicted he would become president without going through an election after he accepted our offer of presidential candidate. We then decided to approach Zuma and that's how this whole partnership with MK started," added the AAAM source.
The public spat is the latest in a series of battles facing MK since its election victory — and what appears to be a subsequent downward spiral. Internal leadership squabbles and anger from supporters over the party's failure to enter coalition talks post elections has left the party unsettled.
But, it’s confident it will bounce back.
"We are ridding the party of saboteurs and will come out of it stronger," added Ndhlela.
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