With Jacob Zuma re-entering the political stage for the first time in five years, there has been a curious absence of clarity on how to process the development.

He has sneaked a major propaganda victory by claiming the name Umkhonto weSizwe as his party name, as the ANC did not copyright or otherwise reserve it - a comical oversight on their part.

The party has left people perplexed about what it may mean, though most are not getting too excited. While the Daily Maverick has (likely correctly) claimed that his new party will have no significant effect on the national polls, they have picked up on the fact that he is still popular in KZN.

After nearly 100 years of Xhosa dominance in the party, Zuma’s presidency completely shook up their prospects in kwaZulu, where the IFP were dominant. His candidacy cut IFP support nearly in half back in 2009, and the effects of his make-work schemes provided cushy jobs for supporters, which has now dried up.

This is a much-overlooked aspect of the ANC-IFP struggle, which is usually seen through the lens of raw power struggle. But for the Zulu people, simunye politics (the notion of unity as paramount) is an incredibly important issue, especially considering the oceans of blood that have been spilled in Zululand over the national question. "Divisiveness" is as sore a point today as broedertwis was for the Afrikaners 100 years ago.

The competition between the ANC and IFP has fundamentally been a question of identity - are we Zulu, or are we black? While this is apparently not mutually exclusive, it holds up questions about the role of the king, of the nature of land tenure, of the future of their community as a whole - it is a question of the future of the entire nation.

And Zuma offered them a compromise - we can still be Zulu, while banding together to fight the white man. He increased the powers of the monarchs and the traditional chieftaincies, and proudly upheld traditional mores, including polygamy, dress codes, and the seasonal rituals.

He made the Zulus feel like they were in charge of their own affairs, within black nationalism - made them feel like they could have both radical liberation and ancient tradition at the same time.

But that went by the wayside after his defeat in 2017, and has led to a simmering malaise, as many Zulus were relegated from the upper hierarchy, and patronage dried up.

Recently, the opposition has been getting optimistic, with foreign coverage of the DA’s new star Chris Pappas, who won a mostly Zulu ward for the DA by increasing their vote share by a point or two (the 20% white minority in Umngeni votes almost exclusively DA, and the black population tend not to vote at all).

Pappas has made a major turnaround there, raising hopes that the DA will pull off another Cape victory by demonstrating governance capacity in one municipality.

But the main winners these past few years have been the Zulu nationalists. While the new NFP split the vote slightly, the IFP has been making a major comeback.

According to the analysis of by-elections in the province by Dawie Scholtz, the IFP has the opportunity to take the province away from the Charterists (ANC, EFF etc) through a coalition with the DA.

But Zuma’s arrival is an unaccounted-for variable in these calculations, and we will have to wait for next year to know for sure how big an impact he will have locally.

That said, his chances are good to be the determining factor in the province’s governance over the next electoral cycle.

Zuma, being the former head of intelligence for the party, a wealthy man, and a popular former president, additionally commands the allegiance of most of the MK veterans and new trainees.

Their ability to mobilise in his support was demonstrated in 2021, when they shut down half the country and stirred pogroms against racial minorities as part of a protest against his arrest.

In the lead-up to this action, they were disbanded. They had operated under the banner of the MK Military Veterans Association until the 8th of July.

This was the peak of the purge of Zuma loyalists by Cyril Ramaphosa, branded as an “anti-corruption” campaign, though no major arrests or cahnges were made that could upset the status quo.

This combination, of disgruntled former beneficiaries of government make-work schemes, radical transformationists and the general malaise of the country, as well as the potential Zuma offers as a bridge between Zulu- and black-nationalism, make him a formidable local opponent. He will likely grab many former ANC members too.

The ANC itself has been cocky, insisting that the new MK party is full of “discredited individuals”, but this rings hollow.

While they can’t be expected to seize control of major swathes of the national vote, even a few percentage points in KZN will be enough to become kingmaker. Negotiations will be hairy.

The ANC sinking below 50% has led to many ecstatic predictions, but there is a strong likelihood that at a national level at least, they will maintain enough to only have to partner with smaller parties.

Julius Malema is impossible to control, and many in the party would likely want to postpone that wedding as long as possible.

But Zuma is a known quantity, and will have several cards up his sleeve, especially when the ANC stands to be pushed out of a second and third province (Western Cape, Gauteng, KZN), all three together making up 65% of the economy.

Preventing that eventuality will give Zuma all the clout he needs to return to the old game, and he need not gather more than 5% of the Zulus under his wing to achieve it.