Mr Zuma, who was the country’s president between 2009 and 2018, said it “would be a betrayal” to campaign for the ANC of current President Cyril Ramaphosa.

His new party is named uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), meaning spear of the nation, which is the same name as the former armed wing of the ANC, of which Mr Zuma was a member, fought the apartheid-era government of South Africa, but was formally disbanded in 1993 prior to the democratic elections which saw the ANC come to power under Nelson Mandela.

At a news conference in Soweto, Mr Zuma said the ANC was expected to lose the elections next year and referred to a “deliberate plot to kill the ANC”, having characterised the current government as a failure.
The ANC faces national elections next year in South Africa, viewed by many as the most
competitive since it came to power in 1994.