Shivambu must slam brakes on doomed dream to start new party

Lloyd Shivambu, the immediate former secretary-general of the MK Party and now what passes for a nondescript member of Jacob Zuma's party, invited the nation to lend him its ears this past week. All eyes were on him as he took to the podium at a venue in Midrand, Johannesburg, on Wednesday.

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An expectation that superseded all else was that Shivambu would, when all was said and done, announce the establishment of yet another political party to add to the existing alphabet soup of such organisations.

Instead, the former second-in-command of the EFF deferred the issue and announced that he would embark on a national consultative tour to canvass the opinion of all and sundry - to get the answer to whether there is room at the table for another political party.

He also, curiously, announced that he would remain a member of MKP. On that score, we would venture to acknowledge that he has learnt well at the foot of the geriatric who indulged him for the past six months as ostensibly the second most powerful man in the MKP.