Ramaphosa’s downfall is not part of EFF’s plan ‘yet’ – Shivambu

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy president Floyd Shivambu said on Tuesday that if President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “downfall” was part of his party’s plan, “he’d have fallen by now”, suggesting that the tactic, for now, may be to let the president’s “faction” do its own damage.

“His downfall is not EFF plan yet,” said Shivambu in response to a question on Twitter.

“If it were EFF plan, he’d have fallen by now. We are cautioning the faction that they should stop making stupid mistakes because they are going to dig a deeper hole for their president,” he continued.

This was part of an exchange which began when Shivambu reacted to the announcement of a media briefing from ANC leaders who were involved in the successful CR17 campaign to result in Ramaphosa becoming president of the governing party, and subsequently the country.

READ MORE: Mthembu says ANC officials are dealing with CR17 campaign matters

Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu announced the briefing only to cancel it two hours later, after a “discussion with the officials of our glorious movement” led him to believe that “they are dealing with the matters relating” to Ramaphosa.

Before the cancellation was announced, Shivambu had strong words about the ANC’s pro-Cyril faction.

According to the EFF second-in-command, they are an “institutionalised faction” with “white capitalist funders, administration, offices, website, logo and [biased] media influence”.

“Let them go ahead and dig a deeper hole for their president. One thing for sure is that they excel in making stupid mistakes,” he added.

This led to a response from a Twitter user, who asked why, if Ramaphosa’s “downfall is part of EFF plans”, Shivambu would “care if their mistake were to contribute to that”, leading to Shivambu’s suggestion that the party’s plan at the moment is to let Ramaphosa’s allies within the ANC “dig a deeper hole” for him.

The CR17 campaign has become the source of controversy following Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane presenting bank statements in parliament in November last year, showing a R500,000 payment into an account belonging to Ramaphosa’s son Andile from hugely controversial facilities management company Bosasa.

READ MORE: Mkhwebane’s report ‘fundamentally and irretrievably flawed’, says Ramaphosa

The president said this was money for legitimate consulting work on Andile’s part but later did an about-turn, admitting the payment was a donation to the CR17 campaign, a development he claimed he had no knowledge of at the time.

A report by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane found Ramaphosa guilty of misleading parliament over the donation, a conclusion the president called, and announced he would be taking on urgent judicial review, calling the report” fundamentally and irretrievably flawed”.

The report resulted from a complaint laid by Shivambu, as well as another one from Maimane and a third from someone Mkhwebane described as an “anonymous whistle-blower”.

Over the weekend, News24 exposed leaked emails which appear to show that Ramaphosa’s defence that he was not involved in the funding process for the campaign is, at least to an extent, untrue.

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