Former EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu will head up the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party’s engine room and will be responsible for driving the party’s programmes, including building structures and draft party policies.
The party is establishing itself as the official opposition to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of national unity.
Shivambu’s appointment, which was announced on Thursday, is not without controversy as he abruptly resigned from his previous party last week to join MK, which is led by former SA president Jacob Zuma.
During the pair’s time in the ANC, Zuma led the charge for Shivambu and former ally turned rival Julius Malema to be expelled from the youth league. This paved the way for the establishment of the EFF and a near decade-long political animosity. Shivambu was in the forefront of chastising Zuma when the Nkandla homestead scandal broke in 2014. Together with his EFF colleagues, Shivambu used the party’s presence in parliament to lobby for the repayment of public money fraudulently used to build the former president’s rural home.
Shivambu and Zuma seem to have buried the hatchet, appearing side by side at the MK press conference on Thursday where the party’s new leadership structure was announced.
“This man I have known since he was very young, that’s when I picked up that he is a real politician. His politics define as scientific politics. [He is] an honest politician and clear politically,” Zuma said. “He takes decisions at the right time for good reasons.”
“I will never betray the revolution, we are not in the business of pleasing each other’s egos,” Shivambu said in response to Malema’s assertion on Monday that his departure from the EFF amounted to a betrayal. “Some people were saying you are betraying me. Where does that enter?”
MK, which received the third-highest number of votes at the May 29 elections, has been plagued by frequent leadership changes at the request of its leader. In just six months it has had four secretaries-general, dampening its ability to adequately establish branches.
Sifiso Maseko is the fourth secretary-general the party has had since it was launched about six months ago.
Shivambu replaces former minister of public works Nathi Nhleko, who has been reshuffled to be the party’s chair.
Shivambu’s new role in the official opposition is to build branches and regions across the country, research and policy, and the appointment of MK party MPs and members of provincial legislatures, among other responsibilities.
Among the leadership collective of the high command, which is the party’s highest decision-making body, are Zuma as president, former Western Cape High Court judge John Hlophe as deputy president; Nombuso Mkhize as deputy secretary-general; Wilson Sibulwane as deputy national chair; and Menzi Magubane as treasurer-general.
“When we announced our existence as a political party on the December 16 2023, we did not have an opportunity to fully establish ourselves as an organisation that is represented in all the corners of SA. We are doing so now based on the principle that we will avoid combining and mixing parliament and legislatures deployment with the leadership of the MK party,” the party said in a statement.
“Except in instances of officials and in other areas where we will decide, deployees to parliament and government are not going to occupy leadership responsibilities in the party.
“We will not convene any elective conference until we have maximum stability and presence in all corners of SA. The MKP is at its establishment process and will not convene elective conferences because we know what such can do to undermine our unity and progress as an organisation.”
Updated: August 22 2024
This article has been updated throughout
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