The EFF has refused to be drawn into speculation that MP and member of its powerful Central Command Team Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi is about to quit the party to join Umkhonto Wesizwe.
Rumors of Ndlozi’s departure have been doing the rounds for weeks and intensified recently when Floyd Shivambu who was the first to jump ship and has already been promoted twice in MKP defined him as a dear friend and a brother when he denied ever having any personal ties to party leader Julius Malema.
Ever since Shivambu’s brother comment made on Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh’s podcast, leading MK figures have been openly courting Ndlozi putting the EFF under pressure to clarify if the rumors were true. Ndlozi who also serves in the party’s highest decision making structure Central Command Team was absent when its meeting started on Thursday evening triggering the media reports that he has been barred from participating in organisational activities.
The EFF through former spokesperson Sinawo Thambo has already insinuated Ndlozi is already misconducting himself for failing to defend the party when it is attacked publicly by MK members and his purported supporters in the EFF.
“Our organisation cannot be dragged through the mud daily in your name and you keep quiet as if you have no capacity to talk. Silence at times becomes complicity,” said Thambo.
The EFF constitution does place a responsibility on members, and in particular on leaders, to defend the party whenever it comes under attack from external forces.
The purported disgruntled members also expressed unhappiness with what they perceive to be Malema’s endorsement of the party’s former Secretary General Godrich Gardhee to be elected deputy president at the National People’s Assembly scheduled to take place 12-15 December at the Nasrec Expo Centre.
Thambo and other members with a better understanding of the internal dynamics have urged members to stay calm and not be moved by sensational headlines.Thambo was himself quietly subjected to disciplinary action for an undisclosed violation which saw him sidelined during the campaign for the May 29 general elections. In fact, Thambo was, just like Ndlozi currently, absent at party events and was in fact only welcomed back after Shivambu’s departure with Malema announcing his deployment to parliament during a mass meeting in Soweto held to assure the rank and file that the EFF remained entact even after Shivambu left.
“We have all been disciplined at one point or another by the party, it is a first to see discipline being misconstrued and weaponized as a public campaign against the party.
We know people who said during and after elections that “this thing is dead”, and now they want to leave with a bang, and be victims. The indictment is the use of persona against the movement, and the persona must speak. The EFF has not been quiet, it has spoken vocally against infiltration and misuse of ideology to destroy it.
If as a person you are being used as a vehicle to undermine the integrity of the EFF, you must speak. What you say is neither here nor there, but there is no honor in creating a perception that you are a victim.
Why are you not speaking when your movement is being portrayed as a villain in your name,” said Thambo suggesting Ndlozi was trying to present himself as a victim.
Malema himself expressed disappointment that some around him knew of Shivambu’s plan to leave asserting they could not be trusted going forward.
Struggle veteran Carl Niehaus who served the ANC in various capacities until his expulsion has faced similar intense recruitment from MKP but unlike Ndlozi he was quick to assert his loyalty to the red berets and Malema.
Furniture maker Sentletse Diakanyo who is a self-appointed EFF social media defender was among those that spent the entire weekend hitting back at criticism leveled at Malema and the party warning members not to be swayed by what he argues is a compromised media.
“Beware of some amongst us who skillfully position themselves as victims while working against us and to destroy us,” he said in a post on social media platform X and reposted by Malema.
Malema’s reposts have become a source of discontent as some complain he’s subtly endorsing Gardee and giving him an unfair advantage.
According to the guidelines for the third National People’s Assembly, 90 percent of delegates are to come directly from branches which means not everyone who is in leadership will be at the meeting.
Meanwhile the EFF’s Gauteng Provincial Chairperson Nkululeko Dunga slammed media reporting on the poaching of the party’s leaders by MKP led by former President Jacob Zuma. Dunga said the press was obsessed with tearing apart the red berets and in the process, ignored much bigger stories.
“There is a media black out on the allegations of MK thuggery where Zuma compels MPs to pay 10% to his personal account and buy him cows as a gesture of appreciation however they run with malicious and petty stories and gossip about our movement,” he said on X.
The EFF is yet to comment formally on the status of Dr Ndlozi and or any other leaders suspected of being MKP sleepers.