Shivambu’s departure: A blow to Malema and the EFF

It’s amazing that there were any dry eyes in the house at EFF headquarters yesterday as the party’s deputy president and one of its founders, Floyd Shivambu, announced he was jumping ship to join Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.

At an extraordinary and emotional press conference, Shivambu was present to make public his decision and ask to be relieved of his duties, prompting the commander-in-chief, Julius Malema, to lament that Shivambu’s departure had hurt him as much as the news of his beloved mother’s death.

It was just the sort of theatre we’ve come to expect from the EFF which, for all of its faults, certainly knows how to manipulate the media and grab the telling sound bites.

Along with Shivambu went Mzwandile Manyi and there were rumours that more defections are in the offing.

Coming on the back of reported ructions in MK under the dictatorial ways of Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, there was speculation about whether the EFF resignations would bolster Zuma and, in turn, mark the beginning of the end for Malema’s party.

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Shivambu may, of course, feel quite at home in MK, given that he is under a cloud regarding the looting of the VBS Mutual Bank in Limpopo and Zuma has been pointed to as at the centre of the state capture network that stole taxpayer money on a grand scale.

Hopefully, the march of the law against both men – glacially slow though it may be – will continue. But perhaps Shivambu regards MK as a better option in terms of ridding himself of the VBS albatross, should that party ever get into power.

Whatever his motives, he clearly believes the EFF is a sinking ship… and given its poor showing in the May elections, he could be right.

We predict more tears and anguish ahead for Malema.