Zuma vows court fight to rejoin ANC — MK merger in sight

Jacob Zuma

Durban – Former president Jacob Zuma says he will fight “tooth and nail” to regain his ANC membership, even if it means going to court, and hopes the ANC and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) will eventually merge.

Speaking at a book launch celebrating the life of his first wife, Sizakele Khumalo-Zuma, held on Saturday, 14 February 2026, in Inanda, just north of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma insisted he still considers himself an ANC member despite being expelled in July 2024 for contravening the party’s constitution by forming and campaigning for the MK Party while retaining ANC membership.

“I said I won’t do anything for the ANC, but my membership card will remain there. It won’t be erased. If they try to remove it, I’ll take them to court. Cattle will be sold. Why did I say that? Because I cannot abandon such honest leaders and pretend as if I was never part of them, as if they never influenced me,” Zuma said, aording to SABC News.

“So I want to emerge from the ANC. Once they have won, we will take it and put it into the MKP and become one thing.”

Zuma, who led the ANC for two terms and was a member for six decades, has previously challenged his expulsion through his lawyers, arguing it was unlawful and unconstitutional.

He has vowed to “die in the ANC” and says he will not abandon the party’s legacy, The Citizen reported.

The MK Party has pledged full support for Zuma’s legal battle, saying its constitution allows dual membership in exceptional cases.

“The MK Party is fully behind president Zuma in this ground-breaking case, which will hopefully see his dual membership of the MK party and the real ANC, not the sell-out ANC of [Cyril] Ramaphosa, restored.

“Such an outcome will bring us closer to the much-needed unity of black people in the centuries-old struggle for total liberation and the return of the land to its rightful owners, the African people as a whole,” the report quoted MK party national spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela Ndhlela as saying in June 2025.

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