Last Friday, EFF leader Julius Malema chose to put on a brave face and attend the inauguration of Botswana’s new president, Duma Boko, as his party witnessed another defection. What comes next for the EFF is the question on most people’s minds.
Since the defection of Floyd Shivambu to Jacob Zuma’s MK party, questions has been raised swirling about the future of the 10-year-old EFF. Last week, Dali Mpofu, Zuma’s lawyer and former EFF national chair, followed Shivambu to MK.
This sparked speculation about which of the EFF’s top guns are plotting their departure. The name that has come up is that of Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, the party’s former national spokesperson. He has denied it.
The most immediate priority for Malema is to organise an elective conference. This is due in weeks, and only one position — his own — is guaranteed. Only after the conference will other leaders make up their minds.
Malema, who founded the EFF after his expulsion from the ANC, is a shrewd political operative. As well as taking the ANC Youth League’s organisational machinery with him, he also worked hard to build the party over the past decade.
He also has sharp political instincts. He has kept the party together through strict discipline and his demand for absolute loyalty from his team.
Under his leadership, the EFF shook up SA’s political space, which has been dominated by the ANC for the past three decades. The EFF is the most successful breakaway from the ANC to date. It is too early to rate the MK party, which broke away from the ANC last December.
Among its many achievements is the ousting of Zuma from the Union Buildings and making him pay back the money he used to upgrade his Nkandla homestead.
Through a combination of theatrics and lawfare, the EFF kept parliament and the executive on their toes.
Despite Malema’s charm, he is hard to love. He doesn’t tolerate dissent and can be plainly abrasive and erratic.
However, lately he has started miscalculating.
Like the ANC, he grossly underestimated Zuma’s party. He tried, and almost succeeded, to get Zuma to endorse the EFF in last May’s elections. This would have been a major political boost to the EFF’s electoral fortunes.
His rationale was that the black opposition parties should fight the elections separately and then reconvene after the elections to chart an alternative to the ANC.
After the elections, the EFF was outplayed by President Cyril Ramaphosa. While entertaining talks to join the ANC-led grand coalition, it got distracted from the black unity agenda project. It didn’t help that the MK was badly disorganised.
It also forgot its primary mission: to dislodge the ANC from power.
In hung municipalities around Gauteng, the party finds it easy to work with the ANC. This is largely because of the political chemistry its leadership has with the Gauteng ANC. This doesn’t exist at national level.
As a result of the clumsy strategy, it is neither part of the ANC-led grand coalition nor front-footing the black unity initiative.
Of course, this is not to suggest that the latter project is dead. In fact, it can still happen.
But there are hurdles to be overcome. MK, which is now the official opposition in the National Assembly and KwaZulu-Natal, doesn’t believe in the country’s constitution even though it contested elections under the same law.
The EFF, on the other hand, has used the supreme law to its advantage over the years. It was the EFF that took the Nkandla upgrades matter to the Constitutional Court, resulting in Zuma being made to pay back the money for the non-security upgrades at his place.
In two weeks, the EFF will be at the apex court in a matter involving Ramaphosa. This in relation to a robbery at the president’s Phala Phala farm three years ago.
So, the EFF would not tear the constitution up if it came to power.
Unlike the MK party, the EFF will hold a national conference to elect leaders. MK has no such plans. Instead, it regularly appoints and fires its hand-picked leaders.
After the elective conference, Malema will be in a better — but not necessarily stronger — position to revisit the black unity project.
To be stronger, he will need to pull out some surprises. Up until now, Malema has desisted from poaching from MK. This is despite his party bleeding members — such as Shivambu, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and Mzwanele Manyi — to MK.
This suggests an unofficial non-aggression pact. Malema has also refrained from blaming MK for his woes.
The smaller parties — in and outside the government of national unity — lack high-profile names that will bolster the EFF.
This leaves only the ANC as his hunting ground. Though in decline, the ANC still has crowd pullers, some of whom are disgruntled with the power-sharing arrangement.
Two events are significant for the ANC’s cohesion. First, dissolving Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provincial structures will make the pool of potential recruits bigger; and second, the outcome of next year’s general council meeting will determine whether Ramaphosa has consolidated his power or becomes a lame duck.
Malema will not wait for what happens in the ANC. His next move is likely to target high-profile recruits from the ANC to strengthen his hand in negotiations with MK. Making himself lovable is not on the list of his priorities.
• Dludlu, a former editor of The Sowetan, is CEO of the Small Business Institute.
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