Political turmoil: Shivambu’s exit and its impact on the EFF

The recent defection of former EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu to uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party is a reminder that political waters run deep and murky.

And the murkier the water, often the more elaborate and far-fetched the media’s opinions ventured on what lurks there.

The media has spent an entire week agreeing that this is an important development but is seemingly uniformly puzzled about the exact significance, or what long-term effect this will have on the health of either party. If any.

Some believe Shivambu’s departure is a potentially fatal blow to the EFF. It’s a party already on the back foot following its poor performance in the May elections.

According to this school of thought, not only has the EFF lost its leading (only?) political theorist and intellectual, but MK, hitherto no more than a personality cult, will, with Shivambu, gain someone who can garb its incoherent policies in some flattering Marxist-Leninist frocks.

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First of all, it’s difficult to see how Shivambu’s alleged intellectual sophistication has contributed to a party that is best known for its racism, intimidation and acts of violence.

Ever since its foundation, the EFF’s stance on any issue has been based on populism, driven by Julius Malema’s unerring instinct for soundbites.

Secondly, the EFF is also no less oriented around a single person than MK. While the bond between Malema and Shivambu goes back to 2013, when they were both expelled from the ANC for indiscipline, it is Malema who has always been the unchallenged top dog.

Another well-aired theory is that Shivambu’s defection is all a ruse. He is supposedly the EFF’s very own sleeper agent, inserted into MK to be activated at a later date to depose Jacob Zuma and unite the so-called progressive forces under the EFF banner.

Given that this scenario rests on a twofold implausibility – that the EFF leadership combines not only exceptional cleverness and remarkable cunning, but that MK is fatally stupid and naive – it seems on available evidence extremely unlikely.

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By far the most likely explanation for Shivambu’s resignation is the most prosaic: personal ambition.

Shivambu has always in public played the part of the self-effacing helpmeet always at Malema’s side – the two are implicated in the R2 billion swindle that collapsed VBS Mutual Bank – but always deferential to his leader’s enormous ego.

However, some within the EFF who have tired of their commander-in-chief’s Genghis Khanstyle leadership, have apparently long been whispering seductively in 2IC Shivambu’s ear.

The recent negotiations to form a government of national unity (GNU) reportedly brought further friction.

The Sunday Times, quoting sources in the EFF, ANC and MK, reports that Shivambu and other EFF leaders were negotiating a GNU participation deal with the ANC which would have included Shivambu getting a deputy minister of finance position.

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Malema, however, upset the apple cart by secretly approaching President Cyril Ramaphosa directly, hoping to snaffle for himself the post of second deputy president in a GNU that he has since denounced.

The bad blood between Shivambu and Malema will fill the DA and ANC with delight. The radical left is currently dispersed between MK, the EFF and a third group still hunkering down in the ANC, which is waiting to see the way the wind blows.

The greatest threat to the survival of the GNU is if these unite.

Shivambu’s exit will slow that process. It will be further impeded if, as seems likely, Shivambu and Malema are criminally indicted over the VBS fraud.

It’s setting up to be a prosecutor’s wet dream: two men who know one another’s deepest, darkest secrets and are now in bitter rivalry. Who will be the first to seek judicial indemnity or leniency with the promise of ratting out the other?

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