Impact of Floyd's defection

ANALYST: CROSSING FLOOR WILL DILUTE RADICAL POLITICAL CULTURE

- Khanyisile Buyile Masilela

Unlike MK, EFF is grounded on Pan-Africanism.

On 15 August, the EFF held a press conference to announce the resignation of its former deputy president, Floyd Shivambu.

His departure from the radical left-wing party to the newly founded uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party brought shock waves as his resignation was least expected, particularly to his close ally and party co-founder Julius Malema.

Malema stressed that he never anticipated the resignation and it left him dumbfounded, but the organisation had to accept Shivambu's choice.

Shivambu's departure from the EFF received considerable attention from members of the public, media, academics and political pundits.

The dominant narrative attributes Shivambu's departure to Malema's purported dictatorship, Malema's public scathing of the party's KwaZulu-Natal poor election performance under the Floyd-led campaign and his purported covert negotiation to be integrated into the government of national unity, among other things.

Others foresee the departure as the beginning of the party's demise.

They claim that the party will die because Shivambu was the brain that complemented Malema as the face of the party.

They say it will follow on the heels of the Congress of the People (Cope). Established in 2008.

Cope had a strong political show in the 2009 provincial and national elections, but internal fractures prompted its decline.

I believe Shivambu's defection will dilute the radical political culture in SA.