Is Floyd Shivambu seeking to whitewash former president Jacob Zuma’s toxic past, or his own?
Shivambu has attempted to dupe South Africans into believing his strident opposition to state capture during his tenure as EFF deputy president came about because he was “misled”. This speaks volumes about his prowess as a politician. Leading is something Shivambu has never done. He has always been led by the nose, and with that his narrative shifts.
Shivambu, spokesperson for the ANC Youth League at the time, was suspended from the ANC in 2011, along with former league president Julius Malema. It was a fraught time for the league, which had been established by political giants Anton Lembede, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ashby Mda and Oliver Tambo back in 1944.
The league under Malema came under fire over its political stance against Zuma, whom the organisation had helped raise to the helm of the party and the country. It was the first taste of Zuma’s ruthlessness towards his erstwhile allies in the party. Malema soon faced a messy disciplinary hearing over his comments on regime change in Botswana, which were contrary to ANC policy at the time, and was expelled.
Shivambu was expelled in 2013 after continuing to agitate against Zuma’s administration while on suspension — and working for the new outfit Malema was setting up, which became the EFF.
I gave away my membership of the Zuma African National Congress (ZANC) and consequently the ZANC Youth League
— Former ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu
At the time of his expulsion Shivambu described the move by the ANC as “hilarious”: “In all the public statements I have made since my suspension from the ANC, I have unequivocally said that I give away my membership of the Zuma ANC (ZANC) and consequently the ZANC Youth League.”
He described the ANC under Zuma as “directionless, possibly the most corrupt, and [an] openly neoliberal, right-wing political formation”.
Now that he is secretary-general/organiser of Zuma’s MK party Shivambu cannot wish away Zuma’s legacy of destruction wrought on SA so he is trying to change the narrative. This is hardly original. The Gupta brothers helped carve out Zuma’s new political identity as a messiah against white monopoly capital and a beacon for economic emancipation with the help of now-defunct UK-based PR agency Bell Pottinger, which had worked for former apartheid presidents, oligarchs and dictators across the globe.
The aim was to inflame racial tension in SA by painting the accusations of state capture against Zuma as a ploy to undermine emerging black business in the country, which Zuma wanted us to believe was epitomised by an Indian-born family who illegally commandeered the Waterkloof Air Force Base to fly in wedding guests.
Zuma’s links to Bell Pottinger were direct — emails between his son Duduzane Zuma and Victoria Geoghegan, the Bell Pottinger partner responsible for the account, indicated that the goal was far broader than simply cleaning up the Guptas’ image.
Rather, it was to hijack the legitimate fight for economic emancipation to mask corruption and state capture, a huge setback for those genuinely pushing for equality. The ramifications continue to this day as MK attempts to recast Zuma as SA’s potential economic saviour.
For Shivambu, the decline in support for the EFF and the intensity with which the Hawks are now pursuing those implicated in looting VBS Mutual Bank made it essential that he find a new outfit to provide political shelter when the axe falls.
The Hawks have already arrested 35 people in connection with the large-scale looting of VBS, which provided a loan to Zuma to settle his Nkandla debt to the state. Three convictions have been secured. In a media briefing earlier this week Hawks boss Godfrey Lebeya told journalists the unit was focused on VBS.
“Rest assured that the VBS [matter] will be completed and even some of the things that advocate [Terry] Motau did not pick up during his investigation, when we pick up, we add. We don’t leave that out,” he said.
Motau produced a hard-hitting investigation report into the collapse of VBS in March 2018 — around the same time that Shivambu’s former political home, the EFF, changed its stance towards Zuma. After being his harshest critic, Shivambu suddenly started to back him.
Motau found that EFF leaders had benefited from the looting of the bank to the tune of R16m paid to Sgameka Projects, owned by Shivambu’s brother Brian. Floyd Shivambu and Malema were further implicated in an explosive affidavit by former VBS chair Tshifhiwa Matodzi, who was convicted of fraud for donating VBS funds to the EFF for their use.
Shivambu trying to shift the narrative over Zuma’s past is a convenient way to protect himself ahead of the reckoning over VBS that is coming his way.
• Marrian is Business Day editor-at-large.
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