The ANC liberation party is carrying a begging bowl, scrambling for coalition partners after getting just over 40% of the country's vote. Had it acted resolutely against Jacob Zuma's disastrous leadership earlier, we might have been spared this humiliating outcome.

I speak as a pained member of the ANC. I write as an aggrieved member of the Veterans League, as an angry member of the MK Liberation War Veterans, as well as a former chairperson of the uMkhonto weSizwe Council (MK Council)

The former deputy president of the ANC, Kgalema Motlanthe, penned a well-reasoned article in the Sunday Times on the issues the ANC cannot compromise on in seeking to form coalitions to take the country forward following the elections, which for the first time saw the ANC lose its parliamentary majority since the advent of democracy 30 years ago.

His reasoning suggests parties like the newly formed uMkhonto Wesizwe party should be out of consideration for the ANC to engage in discussions with as far as coalitions are concerned.

I make a less clinical but more impassioned and forthright political argument as to why the ANC must never countenance the idea of a coalition with the MK party of Zuma. The ANC must also dissuade some of its members from entertaining such an outrageous idea.

As a starting point, Zuma's State Capture project aimed at undermining state institutions was preceded by the attempted capture and control of the ANC...