MKMVA, MKP slam Mbeki over 'apartheid-era narrative'

THE MK Party has rejected remarks by former president Thabo Mbeki which it says portray the party as a product of “counterrevolutionary forces” rooted in apartheid-era security structures, arguing that the claims are reckless and unsupported by evidence.

- HOPE NTANZI

MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said the narrative advanced by Mbeki was an attempt to delegitimise the democratic choices of millions of voters who had withdrawn their support from the ANC.

“The MK Party rejects, as politically reckless, socially dangerous and intellectually dishonest, the narrative advanced by former president Thabo Mbeki,” Ndhlela said.

Mbeki was speaking at the inaugural uMkhonto weSizwe Liberation War Veterans (MKLWV) conference, where he told members that public anger over the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma and the July 2021 unrest had been falsely presented as popular solidarity.

He said the idea that people rose in defence of Zuma was “a lie, a complete lie”, and dismissed that explanation as “a lot of rubbish”.

According to Mbeki, the unrest was a deliberate intervention by what he termed the “counterrevolution”, aimed at testing whether it could destabilise and paralyse South Africa.