PREVIEW
The opposition is in turmoil after Malema’s deputy jumped ship to join the fledgling MK party
The defection of Floyd Shivambu to Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe party has dealt a hammer blow to Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), particularly now that Shivambu has been appointed as MK’s national organiser.
The former deputy leader, Shivambu resigned from the EFF last week after having been one of its founding members alongside Malema in 2013.
Shivambu’s new job includes building branches and regions nationwide, overseeing research and policy development, and appointing MK party members to parliament and provincial legislatures.
MK emerged from nowhere in December 2023, to win 58 seats on 14.6% of the vote in May’s general election, despite having minimal organisation and appearing to be little more than a vehicle for former President Zuma. In the process, it pushed the EFF into fourth place at 9.5% (AC Vol 65 No 12, Choices get starker after the ANC vote crash).
MK’s future viability as a party likely depends on peeling off what remains of Zuma’s support base in the African National Congress (ANC) and by eating into what remains of the EFF’s vote. The two parties have similar economic policies, particularly on land expropriation and nationalisation of the mines and the central bank.
Shivambu has refused to say why he chose to leave the EFF. However, he has already hinted at pushing for a unified ‘progressive caucus’ that would oppose the ANC/Democratic Alliance-led Government of National Unity.
‘This thing of small, unviable political parties of South Africa is not sustainable for the future of black people in South Africa,’ he said on 22 August.
In a post-mortem of the May elections, former Director-General in the Presidency, Joel Netshitenzhe, warned that ethnic identity-based voting shows no sign of dying out. Should Zuma’s MK develop a party infrastructure, it has a substantial constituency of votes that it could tap into (Dispatches 7/8/24, Chastened ANC pins the blame on Jacob Zuma).
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