MBOMBELA – You can tell by the anticipation in the air that the national general election is approaching and, according to analysts, is not going to be an easy one since there are new political parties on the block such as Aganang and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) that was officially launched on Sunday in Marikana by its president, Julius “Juju” Malema.
It seems as if many people, especially the youth, have confidence in the EFF as some claimed that the ruling party had failed them. While Malema was launching his party officially, the provincial secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), Mr Bonakele Majuba, accused EFF of trying to copy everything from the SACP, which included policies and the colours of the organisation.
He said, “They are trying to copy everything from us, and none of it is original.
“The berets we started to wear a long time ago. In terms of the colours, they have been those of the SACP and Cosatu for a very long time, representing the working class in the country.
“They have copied our policies, like the land question and bringing back to the people, but their view is distorted. We have been talking about that issue for a very long time, we even held a land summit. We have a problem when people who do not represent the working class, use it. We will continue wearing and using them, but all we can do is warn people to be careful.”
The EFF’s national elections coordinator, Mr Godrich Gardee said, “We reiterate that no colour nor idea was patented by Majuba and his cronies in Mpumalanga. We are aware that he wants some relevance to the list conference of his corrupt ruling party. SACP is a tamed lapdog of the capitalist and white owners of wealth and land. We know for a fact that the SACP is a third force with no relevance in politics and that they have let down their former leaders like Chris Hani and Joe Slovo.”
He said that if they were claiming that they had stolen their ideas, how did they implement that?
“You can’t accuse people of copying ideas. Where on earth did they implement it? We are not going to lose focus on our real objectives, but very soon we will release a detailed response to the unprovoked utterances by the dysfunctional Communist party of Blade.”
Speaking to Mpumalanga News, independent political analyst,
Mr Zwelibanzi Mncube indicated that nobody had a monopoly on what to wear. “I think the EFF is a threat to the SACP because if we check, the party is vocal and is putting forward certain issues, including nationalisation and the land issues. Some of them were dismissed by the ruling party at Mangaung and the SACP is always
quiet – maybe it is afraid of the ANC.
“I don’t think that when you wear red as a colour, you can say that somebody is stealing something from you. The problem will be a logo, but the EFF didn’t use that of the SACP.”
