After Floyd Shivambu publicly clashed with Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of MK Party leader Jacob Zuma, we all knew his goose was cooked. But this pontiff, imbued with so-called “superior logic”, somehow just couldn’t see it coming.
When the inevitable happened this week — with Shivambu announcing the planting of seeds for his future political home — it was noteworthy for its comic value rather than its utility. Whether it was him or the MKP that decided he would not return to parliament is beside the point; here is a former deputy president of the EFF — who was also its chief whip — who couldn’t make the grade as a backbencher.
The runway has become shorter for Shivambu — he must lay the tar as he figures out a way forward.
The runway has become shorter for Shivambu — he must lay the tar as he figures out a way forward. EFF leader Julius Malema must be rolling with laughter. It looked as if the end was nigh six months ago for the EFF. Shivambu was supposed to orchestrate a mass exodus to the new kid on the block, the MKP. Now, without any party to join, he is forced to create his own. I suppose anyone and their uncle can form a party, right?
Isn’t Shivambu exactly where he needs to be? Reading the room wasn’t his thing. He is a victim of his own vibe. He got tired of being Malema’s deputy, and assumed a quick route to the top was through a fragile, old, sickly Jacob Zuma — he must have believed it was not going to be a long wait.
He did not anticipate that there were what he terms “scoundrels” close to Zuma, who quickly became paranoid. They believed Shivambu’s trip to Shepherd Bushiri was meant to imbue him with “magical powers” — on top of “superior logic” — and make him invincible, as he positioned himself to take over the party. We must laugh so we don’t cry.
Truth is, back when he was EFF deputy president, Shivambu was assigned to increase voters in KwaZulu-Natal. The EFF lost 350,000 voters — mainly to the MKP — compared to their previous election performance. When Shivambu couldn’t convince them, he decided to follow them. For some reason, the MKP leadership assumed he could help them eviscerate the EFF. Again, however, no large numbers followed him to the MKP.
Schooling has, at least, enabled him to write a constitution for a political party. That’s as much as he has delivered. Zuma and his comrades didn’t think twice about using it to fire him. He now must write another constitution for the new party he will form. Don’t laugh. Let’s hope it’s also not used to fire him.
If superior logic doesn’t escape him, he may quickly learn that in order not to be fired from your own party — as Bongani Khumalo was after allegedly forming the MKP — he must create his own cult.
At his presser, Shivambu mockingly referred to Brenda Fassie and the Black Dudes (ostensibly meaning the Big Dudes). He said, in reference to the EFF, that the black dudes don’t know what to do when the putative Brenda is not close by. This remark unleashed emojis of Brenda with Malema’s face superimposed.
But who is to say Zuma, too, isn’t the MKP’s own Brenda? Or Bantu Holomisa in the UDM? Looking at the people who surrounded Shivambu at his presser this week, he had become the latest Brenda and the Black Dudes, too!
The Bible poses the question: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, but pay no attention to the plank (or log) in your own eye?”
What should we make of Shivambu’s focus on “scoundrels”; or his defence of Zuma as one of the greatest leaders, despite having told the nation Zuma will be arrested for his corruption and rot in jail?
It’s easy. His pride is getting in the way of accepting that he has been humbled. Or that he made a wrong judgment. We are asked to believe that it’s not his judgment of Zuma (or his wobbly superior logic) that is wrong, it is the “scoundrels” that are messing things up. The log is in his eye.
He says he learnt more in six months from the MKP than he did in 10 years at the EFF. Sometimes we fail to learn — not because the teacher has nothing to impart but because the log in our eye makes it impossible to see what is plain.
Whatever he learnt didn’t stop him going to Malawi to meet a fugitive from justice. And so force the teacher to demote him and throw jabs in public about how useless he is. Now we must wonder what exactly he learnt in six months, as he starts a new journey to “listen” to South Africans about whether to register a party.
But the people Shivambu must listen to first are those he recruited to the MKP, such as Bongani Baloyi, the former Midvaal DA mayor who formed the Xiluva Party ahead of last year’s elections. When it couldn’t get him a seat in parliament, he threw his hands in the air and joined the MKP on Shivambu’s advice.
Ditto Colleen Makhubele, who also ditched her party, the South African Rainbow Alliance, a splinter party of another splinter party called Congress of the People. Like Baloyi, Makhubele also couldn’t raise one seat in parliament. And we must believe that Shivambu — despite everything — would be able to get a single seat? Ahem.
Baloyi is confident yet humble. Let’s hope Shivambu can learn humility from him. That’s if this doesn’t get the latter fired by the paranoid scoundrels at the MKP in the belief that Shivambu is transferring “magical powers” to him to take over the party. Our politics! We must wish Shivambu the best of luck as he “listens” to the nation. He needs it — and loads of humility.
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