Jacob Zuma has taken his desperation for political relevance to new heights with an announcement that he will vote for the newly formed Umkhonto Wesizwe political party.
He said he would not campaign for the ANC in the 2024 national general elections and called on ANC members to vote for the new party.
Since President Cyril Ramaphosa took over the ANC in 2017, Zuma has been on a campaign to undermine his rule and divide the ANC.
The former president leads the so-called Radical Economic Transformation faction in the ANC, a group that is championed by party leaders who have been implicated in various corruption scandals.
One of their main campaigns has been to discredit the State Capture Commission. Zuma was jailed for refusing to follow an instruction from the Constitutional Court to cooperate with the commission.
Zuma's fall from grace has been staggering. The once-powerful ANC leader has been reduced to being an ordinary branch member of the party.
He has failed for years to get villagers in his beloved Nkandla village to shift their allegiance from the IFP to the ANC.
Msholozi, as he is affectionately known, was not elected into the 87-member ANC national executive member during the party's elective conference in December 2022.
In his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, Nxamalala is also not included in the ANC provincial executive committee.
He is also outside of the regional executive structure in the Nkandla district.
Last year, the newly elected ANC KZN leadership publicly humiliated Zuma when it rejected his nomination of his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as the province's candidate for president in the 2022 elective conference.
The provincial structure led by Siboniso Duma, chose to support its former premier Zweli Mkhize who has never been a supporter of Zuma's RET forces in the ANC.
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While Zuma remains popular in KZN, Ramaphosa has not directly approached him to lead the ANC campaign in that province despite a clear threat from the IFP-DA coalition.
Ramaphosa has taken his Presidential Imbizo to KZN communities without including their former president.
Ramaphosa also ignored calls for Zuma to help him manage the succession race in the Zulu Royal Family following the death of King Goodwill Zwelithini kaZwelithini.
Zuma recently tried to resuscitate his flagging political career by becoming the KZN chairperson of the once-popular SA National Civic Organisation.
His announcement in Soweto on Saturday was the latest instalment in Zuma's attempt to return to the national stage of politics.
Meanwhile, ANC secretary Fikile Mbalula said they were contesting the name Umkhonto Wesizwe as it belongs to its now-defunct military wing.
