MK Party names Phakathi for eThekwini as it claims the metro is within reach

The MK Party will contest control of eThekwini Municipality in the 4 November local government elections with Apostle Mxolisi Phakathi as its mayoral candidate, after the party replaced the candidate it first named for the metro in August.

As The South African reported on 4 October, the party says it is confident it will take the metro. Its KwaZulu-Natal spokesperson, Mkhuseli Mlingani, put the claim in the plainest terms available to a party that has never run the city.

“The indicators that we are going to take over eThekwini are there,” Mlingani said. “Only a blind person cannot see that.”

That is a claim, not a result. No by-election or poll in the material reviewed for this report supports it, and the only verdict that counts is the one voters deliver on 4 November. What can be reported is the shape of the contest the party is entering and the record it is asking eThekwini residents to judge.

Mlingani also accused the ANC of trying to blunt the MK Party’s support by parading new members who say they have left the MK Party. He said the party does not recognise them.

“That’s why even the former ruling party is scrambling, trying to perform gimmicks as they welcome new members, claiming they’re from the MK Party,” he said. “But we do not know those people in the ranks and files of uMkhonto weSizwe.”

Defections between parties are a routine feature of South African election season, and both the claim and the denial are political argument rather than fact. What is not in dispute is the scale of what is at stake in eThekwini, which is not an ordinary municipality.

EThekwini is the only metro in KwaZulu-Natal and one of the largest in the country by population and budget. It carries the port of Durban, the busiest container terminal in sub-Saharan Africa, and the industrial belt around it. Its residents have lived for years with water interruptions, electricity outages, crumbling roads and stormwater systems that fail when the rain comes, and with an unemployment rate that is among the highest of any metro in South Africa. Those are the issues the source material identifies as likely to dominate the campaign, and they are the issues residents will measure any party against.

The MK Party’s own candidate history in the metro has been unsettled. The party named Zandile Hlophe-Mkhwanazi as its eThekwini mayoral candidate in August, then removed her from the position after allegations relating to the party’s candidate lists. Phakathi was announced as her replacement. Hlophe-Mkhwanazi remains at the top of the party’s certified proportional representation candidate list for eThekwini, while Phakathi carries the mayoral candidacy. That split is unusual and worth understanding: the PR list determines who takes a council seat, while the mayoral candidate is the person the party puts forward to lead the municipality if it can assemble a majority in the council.

The party has also moved one of the metro’s best-known political figures into its KwaZulu-Natal leadership. Former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede was appointed deputy convenor in the province, an appointment that fuelled speculation she would be the mayoral candidate. She was not selected for that role.

The MK Party drew significant support in KwaZulu-Natal in the 2024 national and provincial elections, and it is seeking to strengthen its position in the province ahead of the local polls. Whether that support transfers to a municipal ballot, where voters choose councillors and ward representatives rather than a national list, is the open question the campaign will answer.

Source: The South African, Elections: MK Party confident it will take control of eThekwini