Zuma suspended by African National Congress after creation of new party

The ANC, the political party that Jacob Zuma was once in charge of, has stopped him from being a part of the party because he didn’t support them and started his own party.

The ANC made a decision on Monday.

Mr Zuma has a new party called uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), which means “spear of the nation”. This party has the same name as the ANC’s old armed group that he used to be a part of.

He was president for nine years, from 2009 to 2018, and had a lot of problems with scandals and accusations of corruption.

The investigation found that the ex-president put his corrupt friends before his own country in a scheme called “state capture. ”

He is accused of being involved in a corrupt weapons deal from 1999. He says he didn’t do anything wrong in any situation.

In 2018, Cyril Ramaphosa became South Africa’s new President and said he would make the government better. He is now guiding a struggling ANC into this year’s national election.

Save mission

During the launch of MK in December, a statement was read on behalf of Mr Zuma. The statement said that he will always be a member of the ANC, but he won’t vote for it. He also said that some of the leaders of the ANC are not behaving in the way that the ANC should and now he wants to “rescue” the “once-great movement”.

Mr Zuma has said mean things about the person who took over his job, Mr Ramaphosa.

The BBC’s Daniel de Simone in Johannesburg says a lot of South Africans think that Mr Zuma symbolizes the problems of the recent past and has made the ANC look bad.

However, he has the support of a large number of people. Many South Africans got very angry and broke things when he went to jail in 2021. A survey showed that almost one out of every three South Africans like him.

It is still not certain if people will support his new MK party in the election, but it may take votes away from the ANC.

The ANC started fighting against apartheid and has been in charge of South Africa since the end of white-minority rule.

Mr Zuma, 81, had always been a member of the ANC.

At 17 years old, he joined the ANC without going to school. He moved up in the ANC’s military and intelligence groups. He also held important positions in Kwa-Zulu Natal and eventually became the deputy president and then the president.

Many people think this year’s election is the most competitive since the ANC became the ruling party in 1994.