MK party leader Jacob Zuma has axed secretary-general Floyd Shivambu.
The move, which Zuma said was due to Shivambu’s visit to Malawi to see fugitive Shepherd Bushiri, has been expected for months. Shivambu was the party’s fifth unelected secretary-general since the MK party’s formation in 2023.
He has been moved to parliament as an ordinary MP for the official opposition.
“The national officials have come to the decision to redeploy … him to the National Assembly … his invaluable skills and experience as a politician will continue to benefit the MK party in the new role to which he will be redeployed,” Zuma said in a statement.
While Zuma used the Bushiri visit as the reason Shivambu was axed, the former secretary-general told the SABC in an interview last week his trip to Malawi was sanctioned by Zuma and cooked up at the inauguration of Namibian President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah in March.
Shivambu told the SABC the visit was intended to take forward talks between Zuma and former Malawian president Joyce Banda.
But Zuma said in the statement Shivambu had violated the party’s constitution, which discourages international trips, activities and programmes “that are opposed to the agenda of the MK party or an allied party”.
He also noted that Bushiri was a fugitive and that “various sectors of civil society” had approached the party about the visit.
“Due to the serious nature of this matter and the implications for the party, its image, values and principles, the president and the national officials were left with no other option but to act swiftly in addressing this matter.”
Shivambu has been increasingly viewed with suspicion within MK party ranks, complicated by unhappiness over the senior positions he and other EFF floor-crossers secured in the party, shortly after their bitter departure from the Julius Malema-led party.
The rift between Shivambu and Zuma’s daughter Duduzile went public after she took to social media to express her dissatisfaction with him in February.
She was made to apologise for the posts criticising Shivambu.
A founding leader of the EFF, Shivambu dropped Malema after the party’s decline in electoral support in the 2024 general elections and joined Zuma’s MK party, which blazed onto the political scene with 14% of the vote in its inaugural election.
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