UMKHONTO weSizwe Party (MKP) spokesperson, Nhlamulo Ndhlela, says the party remained united with strong leadership.
This was despite two recent incidents, which were interpreted as internal squabbles, that were laid bare by public spats between senior leaders in the party led by former president Jacob Zuma.
When asked if there was indeed infighting within the party, Ndhlela said: “No, there is more hegemony than we ever had.”
The first incident was between Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and party Secretary-General Floyd Shivambu.
Later, Zuma-Sambudla issued a public apology for attacking Shivambu’s leadership style on social media, but the apology was interpreted as a reminder of the two parties’ ongoing issues.
Even before the ink dried on Zuma-Sambudla’s apology, another controversy emerged between party Chief Whip Mzwanele Manyi and party Deputy President Dr John Hlophe, the MKP parliamentary leader.
This time, it was alleged that Manyi instructed Hlophe to drop his speech, which he had prepared for debating President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address.
Manyi allegedly gave Hlophe a poorly prepared speech that Zuma had approved, according to reports.
After delivering the second speech, which praised Zuma’s political achievement, Hlophe was not happy.
Ndhlela said the party accepted Zuma-Sambudla’s apology for what she said about Shivambu. This was despite that the apology was not directed at Shivambu.
The majority of individuals used social media to voice their opinions about her apology, claiming it was arrogant and lacked sincerity.
However, Ndhlela said the party had accepted the apology and “there is nothing more we can say beyond what she said”.
He described social media users reacting to the apology as driven by political agendas.
“Are those comments and responses from actual human beings or could they be robots or fake accounts from people who have their agendas?” asked Ndhlela.
He also shot down accession that the speech led to tensions between Manyi and Hlophe. “How can there be tensions between the party chief whip and party leader?
“Remember the impute that is going into the speech is due to towing a party line,” said Ndhlela.
He said Hlophe would consult with the party leaders in executing his parliamentary duties.
“The deputy president works in consultation (and) is eloquent and capable of taking party-line instructions,” he said, adding that Zuma was not part of preparing the speech that Hlophe delivered as “you cannot expect president Zuma to instruct in writing a speech”.
“The fact of the matter is, it does not negate the fact that party leader, chief whip, and us as parliamentarians would go out make the speech our own,” he said.
When pressed to say whether or not the party was happy with the speech, he said the majority of the content came from the party.
“I don’t know how you can talk about President Zuma’s achievement without research,” he said.
Ndhlela said that he had previously been accused with delivering a speech whose subject matter was inadequately researched.
“I can tell you now that the projected GDP grows by 0.4% by this government on the back of my head.
“I can tell you that the GDP per capita growth rate is at 0.7% whereas the population is growing at 1.3 million people, which tells that South Africans would become poorer and poorer.
“These impute comes from Stats SA and Auditor-General, unless you are telling me that what was said there is not true,” he said.