Former South African President Jacob Zuma is facing an attempt to remove him from leadership positions in his new party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the South African press reported today. 

The attempts to boycott Zuma come three weeks before an election in which he is expected to attract significant support.

After Zuma had a falling out with MK founder Jabulani Khumalo and expelled him from the party, Khumalo responded by writing to the electoral commission saying that Zuma was not the legitimate leader of the MK and that his face should not appear on the ballot papers.

Zuma remains a force in South African politics, especially in his home province of KwaZulu Natal, where protests erupted in 2021 after he was arrested for refusing to participate in a corruption inquiry.

MK is named after the former armed wing of the ANC during the apartheid era.

One of South Africa's most controversial figures, Zuma was president from 2009 to 2018, when he was forced to resign following a series of corruption scandals involving his administration.

Openly hostile to his successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, Zuma announced in December that he would not vote for the African National Congress (ANC), his long-standing party, in the May 29 elections, supporting instead the new uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party.