POLITRICKING: EFF marks 12 years with growing pains as door to GNU remains closed
EFF member of parliament and national spokesperson Sinawo Tambo
The door which leads to participation in the national coalition seemingly remains shut for the EFF, despite continued friction among coalition partners.
The red berets have also made numerous attempts to engage with the ANC and made public declarations of a willingness to join the GNU.
The DA has argued its persistent presence in the GNU and relationship with the ANC - though becoming increasingly acrimonious - is aimed at saving South Africa from a “doomsday coalition” between the former liberation movement its splinter, the EFF.
This is a narrative EFF member of parliament and national spokesperson Sinawo Tambo tells EWN’s Politricking with Tshidi Madia, has been effective and still plays a role in keeping the red berets outside.
“There’s a narrative that an inclusion of the EFF in governance equals to constitutional or democratic collapse, or there's a threat to democracy, or could result in a doomsday,” said Tambo as he reflected on his party’s journey since the 2024 May general elections.
The watershed polls saw the reds moving from the third largest political organisation to fourth place, with its support in KwaZulu Natal decimated. Tambo said, their fate, like several other organisations was sealed by the arrival of former president Jacob Zuma’s Umkhonto weSizwe party but added that campaigns like the DA’s weren’t countered sufficiently and have had some impact on how the EFF is perceived.
“I don't think it's based on any verifiable fact now, but it's a narrative that was built up over a course of time, I think since the inception of the EFF, because of the policies that we represent,” he remarked.
And while deemed not fit enough to co-govern at national level, the EFF currently enjoys a relationship with the ANC across several metros, even in Gauteng.
The irony being in 2016, it joined hands with the very same DA warning South Africans against them, in a bid to destroy the ANC.
“We did that to weaken the ANC, and it is weakened now to a point where it can't recover… to work with them now is convenient for the EFF,” he said.
“It’s a shift of politics and I don’t think to remain at the trough, but now we're included in those local government municipalities as well, and we're able to effectively leverage our work in local government to prove to voters that the EFF is capable to govern,” he added.
This is also a relationship that comes with its own tensions, Tambo himself, has accused the ANC of thinking it can lean on the EFF to come to the rescue when it’s met with challenges in its partnership with the DA. The red berets mouthpiece said the ANC shouldn’t presume it will always be on hand to support it, claiming the ANC has shown itself to be both manipulative and inconsistent in this regard.
The MKP brings no value to opposition politics
And while the budget impasse remains a major talking point, it’s also resulted in even more reflections of the state of the opposition in parliament, with the EFF, running roughshod over the MKP, declaring itself the official opposition.
The self-appointed title is due to the almost muted approach by former President Jacob Zuma’s party to hold the GNU accountable for the budget debacle which has been consequential for the country.
The red berets have been attempting to reinvent themselves, at least before the country’s parliament, shifting from its characteristically disruptive posture and past tectonic changes which rocked the organisation last year when some of its key figures, including deputy president Floyd Shivambu, former national chairperson Advocate Dali Mpofu and former spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi quit the party.
But Tambo believes to effectively live up to its commitment of being more robust in parliament, it cannot do so effectively, while working in unison with the MKP. The pair, along with other small parties like ATM form the progressive caucus, which was meant to hold GNU partners accountable, but the MKP has seemingly fallen short in its role as the official opposition.
“I don't think they add anything qualitative to opposition politics,” he remarked.
“They don’t have a programme of action, they don’t have a rational for the opposition work that they do and then it was almost like they piggy backing on what the EFF has laid out,” he continued.
Tambo said the two parties can meet and agree on voting strategies.
The EFF marks 12-years in the coming months, with Tambo insisting that it’s doing the work to recover from some of the major setbacks it recently experienced, this as he recognised the role played by himself and others in parliament has resuscitated its relevance in the eyes of the public.
He admits one of the major tasks for the organisation is interrogating the veracity of its members and accessing the credibility of its structures; this following concerns raised by the EFF’s firebrand leader Julius Malema of bogus branches.
“We are older, but we are still young… not doing too badly, the emergence of the MKP makes it look like that,” he said.