The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a key player in South Africa’s political landscape for over a decade, has been shook to its core by the defection of its deputy leader Floyd Shivambu to former President Jacob Zuma’s new party, uMhkonto weSizwe (MK), or Spear of the Nation.
Mr Shivambu was regarded as the EFF’s ideological guru, while party leader Julius Malema took on the role of commander-in-chief – or “screamer-in-chief,” as his critics dubbed him with his fiery rhetoric demanding the nationalization of white-owned land and mines, as well as the “decolonization” of education.
The couple appeared to be a winning team, with the EFF garnering support from South Africa’s rising youth population, disillusioned with the glacial pace of political and economic reforms after the end of the racist system of apartheid in 1994.
However, the EFF suffered a significant loss in the May general election, falling to fourth place rather than climbing from third to second place.
MK proved to be its political adversary, just as it was for the ruling African National Congress (ANC), by winning votes from both parties and finishing third in the first election it contested.
Mr Shivambu read the political tea leaves and defected to the MK last week, sparking the largest split in the EFF since its inception 11 years ago.
For Mr Malema, it was a personal blow because the two, as young men bursting with political fire, had together established the EFF after the ANC, which was ironically led by Mr Zuma.
