When Zuma’s WeTransfer link goes on the blink

Ever accidentally let a WeTransfer download link expire and then had to grovel for a new one?

That’s not MK’s style. When it can’t access a download, it doesn’t just dash off an email requesting a new link; no, it escalates matters with all the vigour of a Trump-Musk twar.

Which is how it is that Jacob Zuma’s party has been in court (again), this time asking the judge to compel the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to hand over election records that – wait for it – the commission had already sent via the file-sharing site, Karyn Maughan reports for News24.

The request for documentation relates to what look like spurious allegations by MK of irregularities in – and on-off legal action around – last year’s election. The commission’s failure to provide it with the requisite documentation, the party reportedly said, is proof the IEC doesn’t want the veracity of the election result tested in court.

As Maughan writes, it didn’t fly with judge Lebogang Modiba – not least because of the belated action, but also because the IEC had in any case given MK access to results slips through the National Results Operations Centre database. It had made available an audit trail and management reports. And MK had made no proactive attempt to contact the IEC for the information.

Whoops.

Despite an excoriating judgment, MK is apparently seeking leave to appeal the ruling. Stalingrad on steroids – the style we’ve come to expect of Zuma.

Tenacity on stilts

Now, MK claims it couldn’t download the documents because the access codes it was given didn’t work. But given the party’s general lack of organisation, I wouldn’t be surprised if the WeTransfer link had simply expired. You couldn’t blame the party for being distracted though. It’s had a lot on its plate of late – not least the hunt for a new secretary-general (it’s eighth) after it gave Floyd Shivambu the big heave-ho.

Shivambu may only have been in the party for a minute, but something of Zuma would seem to have rubbed off on him. Remember how Zuma fought tooth and nail to remain in the ANC, all while bringing the party into disrepute, undermining its leadership and – no small matter – starting a rival political movement?

Well, Shivambu seems to be digging in too. First he went against party directives and visited fugitive “prophet” Shepherd Bushiri in Malawi. Then he claimed a false intelligence report led to his axing as SG. Then he railed against MK being grounded in Zulu nationalism. Oh, and he also intimated that he’d be setting up his own political outfit.

Yet, at the time of writing, he’s still made no move to resign from MK. Which, like Zuma clinging to his ANC regalia, suggests expedience over political principle; opportunism over ideology. Perhaps Shivambu is not so misplaced in MK after all.

This is, ultimately, a party that takes issue with the very precepts of South Africa’s legal system, while taking advantage of the full extent of its magnanimity. It’s a party that piously claims to be against corruption, while providing a political home to South Africa’s worst state-capture accused. It’s a party that claims to be of the people, yet is simply a cult of personality; a fiefdom, with fealty to a singular leader trumping the common good. A party that would look to advance its position using the very constitution it would overturn in a heartbeat.

And, as the most recent court ruling makes painfully clear, it’s a party that would tear down with baseless allegations the democratic order its legislators have sworn to protect. 

_{Top image: Floyd Shivambu (Gallo Images/Luba Lesolle) and Jacob Zuma (Gallo Images/Darren Stewart); Currency.}