The EFF has embarked on some soul-searching following its performance in the May 8 election in which it increased its support from 6.35% to 10.79%.
The EFF’s central command team (CCT) met for the first time following the general elections in Johannesburg on Wednesday to review its electoral performance.
EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu said members were conducting a strategic review of the electoral process, looking at the weak spots, and preparing for the coming National People’s Assembly in December. The latter is a national conference that elects the party’s new leadership.
The party’s first-ever national conference, at which Julius Malema was elected party leader together with the current leadership, was held in Bloemfontein in 2014.
“The CCT is meeting to make those strategic reflections,” Shivambu said, noting that members will also deliberate on the stance the EFF should take in all the provincial legislatures in which it is represented.
He reiterated Malema’s stance that the EFF did not fund its fourth birthday celebrations in Durban in 2017 with money from VBS Mutual Bank. He said there is nothing new in the allegations and that no law enforcement agencies have acted on them. The claims, said Shivambu, seek to delegitimise the EFF’s integrity and public standing.
“We have since clarified: the EFF has never been involved with VBS and we have never benefited anything from VBS. And that is our final position.”
Coalitions
Regarding the future of coalition governments, Shivambu said they were in talks to have an EFF mayor in the capital city of Tshwane. However, Tshwane is governed by DA mayor Stevens Mokgalapa, who was appointed as the metro’s first citizen in February following Solly Msimanga’s resignation.
Msimanga quit the post to focus on his candidacy for the premier of Gauteng, but lost to ANC provincial chair and incumbent David Makhura.
“[We] said we need to reorganise how coalition governments are constituted here in Gauteng and in other municipalities where there were no outright winners,” Shivambu said. “Our concrete and firm proposal is that the EFF must take the mayorship of Tshwane and must have its members appointed to the mayoral committees of municipalities where there were no outright winners.”
Malema has described this as power-sharing, but stated that the EFF will not call for a motion of no confidence in Mokgalapa as the party would like to take over in a manner that is not chaotic.
“We are talking and we are not seeing any hostilities about a possibility of power-sharing. We will have a mayor in Tshwane, the DA will have MMCs in Tshwane. They will have a mayor in Joburg, we will have MMCs in Joburg,” Malema has said.
The EFF emerged as king makers in the 2016 local government elections, and were instrumental in the installation of DA mayors in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay.
However, the EFF later played a role in the removal of former Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip in 2018, who was replaced with his former deputy, Mongameli Bobani.
At the time, the EFF said it was removing Trollip not because he was corrupt but because it was symbolically “cutting the throat of whiteness”.
Regarding the Tshwane mayorship, DA communications director Mabine Seabe referred questions to federal executive chair James Selfe, who could not immediately be reached for comment.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.