By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says factionalism, disunity and disloyalty will not be tolerated ahead of the party’s third National People’s Assembly (NPA) to be held in Johannesburg next month.
Malema was addressing the Gauteng Provincial General Assembly in the East Rand on Sunday.
The party has been hit with a leadership exodus, with big names, including Floyd Shivambu, Mzwanele Manyi, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and Dali Mpofu, crossing over to uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party.
On Sunday, EFF founding member Alfred Motsi was the latest red berets leader to make the move, returning to his spiritual MK party home.
Malema told delegates that they must guard against “infiltration, individualism and maintain revolutionary discipline.”
He said the “orchestrated organizational decay in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) before the May 29 elections, constitutes a “clear example of infiltration.”
Malema warned that factionalism, disunity and disloyalty will not be tolerated ahead of the party’s NPA.
“The EFF has most recently experienced dangerous levels of infiltration, because this infiltration has been perpetuated by founders of this movement who were converted into sleeper agents and double agents, who sat amongst us but reported elsewhere.”
“The people who have left this organization have not only led this infiltration and betrayal, but even had the audacity to prescribe to us how we must perceive and respond to their infiltration. To defect from the organization you founded, in favour of an organization that has just recently surpassed your own organization in elections, is opportunism, “Malema said.
Malema emphasised that it is the sworn duty of members to stand up and protect and “defend the revolution” when the EFF and its leadership are “unfairly attacked” in public or in private.
“This movement and its leadership are the custodians of the revolution. The fact that we are heading third national assembly, does not mean that we no longer have a leadership, that anarchy must prevail.
“Until the electoral committee dissolves the central command team…this organisation remains led and this leadership will guide you throughout this process alongside your provincial leaders.,” Malema said.
The party suffered a major setback in the May general election when, instead of achieving its goal of rising from the country’s third biggest party to second, it dropped to fourth.
MK party proved to be its political nemesis – just as it was for the governing African National Congress (ANC) – by gaining votes from both parties to snatch third place in the first election it contested.