UMKHONTO weSizwe Party (MKP) secretary-general Floyd Shivambu on Saturday sang former president Jacob Zuma’s praises at an event to celebrate his 83rd birthday in Soweto.
Shivambu addressed MKP supporters at a packed Protea South Hall and described Zuma as a humble visionary and revolutionary.
He said the party felt there was a need to counter the narrative on Zuma, whose contribution to the country is distorted.
Shivambu said MKP had brought political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe to counter the narrative on Zuma.
According to Shivambu, Zuma has never been a project of the white capitalist minority.
“We want to counter the narrative that seeks to erode Zuma’s contribution in South Africa,” he explained.
Shivambu said Zuma was able to speak without reference to anything when speaking about historical events.
He said he was able to define what dialectic materialism is as well as define and simplify science.
Shivambu told party supporters that Zuma demonstrated his humility when he declined to go to serve in the national government after the 1994 elections but chose to be in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government even though he was already an ANC national official.
He said Zuma was abused left, right and centre when he was ANC deputy president between 1997 and 2007.
Shivambu added that Zuma was later fired in a humiliating way as the country’s deputy president in 2005.
He said former president Thabo Mbeki took all the responsibilities he had as late former president Nelson Mandela’s deputy when he appointed Zuma his deputy in 1999.
Shivambu said Zuma was treated as though he had leprosy.
The former ANC Youth League national spokesperson and EFF deputy president accused Mbeki of sowing unparalleled arrogance and treating the ANC with disdain.
He defended the ANC’s decision to recall Mbeki in 2008 following the party’s national conference at which Zuma was elected president in December 2007.
“The ANC took the correct decision to recall Mbeki,” Shivambu remembered, adding that at the time he was based at the ANC’s headquarters at Luthuli House, where he worked fulltime for five years.
He praised Zuma’s role in ensuring that South Africa became a member of the Brics block of countries with Brazil, Russia, India and China.
On the international front, Shivambu said, South Africa was respected and contributed immensely to peacekeeping missions across the continent.
“There was peace during Zuma’s term in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),” he said.
Shivambu said the SA National Defence Force’s capacity has deteriorated and its different units were weaker now than when Zuma was head of state.
Shivambu also urged members to prepare for power in all meetings as the party was not planning to be in opposition.
He said the MKP has adopted the revolutionary path to power in preparing to govern the country.
