MK Party sends Duduzane Zuma to eThekwini wards as it courts frustrated voters

The uMkhonto weSizwe Party has put its first deputy president, Duduzane Zuma, in front of eThekwini residents, saying the voters it is meeting feel shut out and are looking for something else to vote for.

In a post on the party’s official X account, MK said Zuma told residents that “disenfranchised and frustrated” voters are “looking for a credible alternative”, and that the party is committed to “revitalising communities across eThekwini, including Inanda, KwaMashu and Newlands East, and taking the city to new heights”.

The three areas named are among the most densely populated in the metro and among the hardest hit by the city’s service failures. Inanda and KwaMashu sit north of Durban, Newlands East to the west. All three carry long-standing complaints over water interruptions, electricity outages, housing backlogs and unemployment, and all three have been the site of repeated community protests over those conditions in recent years.

The party’s pitch, as it sets it out, is directed at people who believe the ballot has not changed their circumstances. That is a claim about how voters feel, made by the party about the audience it is courting, and it is the frame MK is choosing for its eThekwini campaign.

What the post does not do is say what the revitalisation would consist of. There is no programme in it, no costing, no timetable and no description of what the party would do differently in the metro. The commitment is stated at the level of intention.

MK’s record in eThekwini is the backdrop against which that intention will be read. The party made its strongest national showing in KwaZulu-Natal in the 2024 general election, and it governs several municipalities in the province in coalition. Where it has taken responsibility for local government, the test it now sets for itself in Inanda, KwaMashu and Newlands East is the same one its opponents will apply to it: whether the water runs, the lights stay on and the houses get built.

The party has not said when the eThekwini programme would begin, what it would cost, or which structures would deliver it. The Enquirer put those questions to the MK Party and will report the answer if one comes.