EFF leader Julius Malema. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
As the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) prepare for a fresh round of provincial conferences to elect the next cohort of leaders, party president Julius Malema has denied claims of ghost branches made by disgruntled members.
Malema dismissed the claims, which were contained in a memorandum that accused the Gauteng provincial leadership of purging members and manipulating processes to get a favourable outcome in its provincial conference known as the Provincial People’s Assembly (PPA).
This comes after members threatened to march to the party’s headquarters in Johannesburg to protest against the planned PPA.
Two of the EFF’s key provinces, Gauteng and North West, are expected to go to their PPAs in September. The party’s support grew from 10.26 % to 13.53% in Gauteng at the last general election in 2019. In last year’s local government elections, the EFF was also instrumental in the ANC losing key metros in the province.
In the North West, the EFF has maintained its position as the official opposition to the ANC, growing from 13.21% to 18.64% in 2019. The party has ambitions of unseating the ANC and taking charge in the province.
Given the ANC’s decline in both provinces in the 2021 local government elections, the EFF — with the help of smaller parties — stands a chance of taking over one of the two.
But Malema’s goal could be threatened if branch members persist in challenging the provincial structures in the courts.
“There are no disputes in Gauteng, nothing,” Malema contended during a media briefing on Tuesday.
While the party asserts that it has met its 90% threshold of branches that must quorate for PPAs, this has been disputed by members who wrote to its secretary general Marshall Dlamini. According to the letter — seen by the Mail & Guardian — the party members accused regional and provincial leaders of manipulating processes in all five regions of Gauteng. They claim that they only learned from social media that regions and provinces had reached 90%.
Malema labelled this as gossip, saying party members could not write an unknown letter to dispute branch formations. He said that the party’s constitution instructs that a member of the party in good standing must write to the office of the secretary and only then can a dispute be lodged and investigated. However, the letter suggested that some Gauteng wards had “ghost” delegates, alleging fraudulent activities and the forging of signatures.
“These activities can be done to ensure that wards are submitted to upper structures by regional leaders under false pretence that they launched the said wards while members in those wards are not aware that their branches have launched. We would like to mention all the wards that are said to have launched while the general membership of those particular wards are not aware of and have never participated in the process of launching their wards,” the letter reads.
Malema has also been accused of manipulating processes seeking to influence the election of the top five leaders in Gauteng province. News outlet EWN previously reported that he had called in leaders in Gauteng to inform them of how their conference should unfold. According to the report, Malema is urging Ekurhuleni chairperson Nkululeko Dunga to become the provincial chairperson and that deputy chairperson Itani Mukwevho, who has been acting as chairperson since Mandisa Mashego’s departure, must return to his original position.
Malema is reported to have also agitated for provincial secretary Moshe Koma to remain in that office.
“I don’t do membership, I don’t run elections unless the PPA degenerate and requires intervention only then I’ll be required to intervene,” Malema said on Tuesday.
Branch members claim that disputes have been declared by many branches in Gauteng, but that those that seemed factual and genuine were never responded to, while those that contained errors or technical faults such as late notices were dismissed immediately.
“The dispute committee seemingly is biased and the person responsible for disputes has been deliberately politicking it in a factional way since matters are always referred to provinces even though there are conflicts of interests,” the letter to Dlamini says.
“This has rendered the dispute route toothless and that has discouraged many fighters from writing disputes because they already know that such processes are [a] futile exercise. Many branches are not sure today if their branches have delegates or not since such information is not available to them and they cannot write disputes while they do not know whether their branches have launched or not but many others have written to regional leaders indicating their readiness to launch their branches but they were never attended to.”
The letter identified 64 branch disputes in Johannesburg, 12 in Ekurhuleni, 36 in Tshwane, 37 in West Rand and 37 in Sedibeng.
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