EFF leader Julius Malema on Monday evening addressed the gathering of the Red Berets ground forces at the Orlando Community Hall in Soweto. Picture: Itumeleng English / Independent Newspapers
EFF leader Julius Malema has come out fighting, announcing sweeping changes in the party following the departure of former deputy president, Floyd Shivambu, and Mzwanele Manyi from the party.
Manyi tendered his resignation early last week. His highly kept secret departure from the party was followed by the departure of Shivambu, a co-founder of the EFF.
Shivambu’s resignation last Thursday opened a can of worms with speculation about the real reason for his decision to join the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK).
Malema, who on Monday evening addressed the gathering of the Red Berets’ ground forces at the Orlando Community Hall in Soweto, announced that the party’s secretary-general, Marshall Dlamini, will be the new chief whip in Parliament. The party’s governance task unit, formerly headed by Shivambu would be dissolved.
He also announced that anything that resembled the work of Shivambu would be dismantled.
Malema further stated that the party’s spokesperson, Sinawo Thambo, would replace Shivambu as Member of Parliament.
“Floyd Shivambu shall be replaced by Sinawo Thambo in Parliament as a Member of Parliament in the Republic of South Africa. Comrades, Jimmy Manyi shall be replaced by Nazier Paulsen, who is our commissar and trusted confidant in the Western Cape province. We are fighting now, we are not playing. You invite us into a fight, we accept it... where there is a fight you will find us. We will never retreat in defence of this movement,” he said.
Malema told his ground forces to unite and not allow themselves to be divided by enemies of the party, who had shown their disloyalty to the movement and its cause.
“We must unite and close ranks against any and all elements that seek to use our national peoples assembly as an opportunity to infiltrate and destroy the EFF. We must guard against opportunism, factionalism and self-entitlement, greed and all attempts to distract us from the mission. We have a duty to those who came before us and the future generations to show them that the recent elections do not mark an end of the EFF,” he said.
On predictions of the demise of the EFF following the departure of his close comrade Shivambu, he said: “Doomsayers have predicted our downfall too many times. They have predicted our downfall before. Why do you keep choosing the people who never choose you when it is time for them to choose you?”
The Star
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