ANCYL President Collen Malatji
The ANC does not need the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party’s former secretary-general Floyd Shivambu in its ranks, ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Collen Malatji has said, describing him as “a small boy” who lacks support.
Malatji made the comments in the wake of suggestions that Shivambu could leave the MK party — where he had brief tenures first as national organiser and then secretary-general. MK leader Jacob Zuma stripped Shivambu of his position earlier this month over an unsanctioned trip to Malawi.
“I don’t want Floyd in the ANC; I want Julius,” Malatji told the Mail & Guardian in an interview last week, referring to Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema.
“Floyd is a small boy and no one cares about him. Zuma realised it. There’s nobody following Floyd. He can do what he wants; he can form his own party. He hates the ANC and the ANC hates him. We don’t want Floyd in the ANC. The person we would welcome is Julius, not Floyd, because Julius has a base.”
Malatji dismissed Shivambu as lacking a political support base and known only on social media, adding: “Even in his village, no one cares about him.”
The MK party had planned to redeploy Shivambu to parliament but sources said he declined the offer.
“He’s not on the parliamentary list — unless it changes at the last minute,” one source told the Mail & Guardian.
Aside from Shivambu’s controversial trip to Malawi, where he attended a church service conducted by fugitive from the law Shepherd Bushiri, party members also accused him of being divisive and arrogant.
In a speech to the Maanda-Ashu Workers Union of South Africa on Saturday, Shivambu said, since his removal from his MK post, he had had no full-time responsibilities and had spoken to the union’s president about doing volunteer work for the organisation across South Africa.
Shivambu said the union needed to have a presence in all the regions of KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and Western Cape.
At an MK party rally in Durban on Sunday, Zuma castigated party members who had called for Shivambu’s reinstatement, threatened to protest against the decision and demanded an explanation from the national high command regarding the move.
“If we realise that one of us has gone astray, we won’t beg. There have been seven secretary generals in this party; they are seven now because we are not playing,” Zuma told party supporters.
“Even if you know you are big, you are loved, you’re everything, we don’t care; we talk about our party. There are people who have been saying they want to protest because we took a certain decision; it means this party is still not fully built the way we want it.”
In the interview with the M&G, Malatji described Shivambu as an undisciplined individual who had been expelled from all youth structures of the ANC, his political home before joining the EFF, from which he defected last year.
In 2012, Shivambu was suspended by the ANC for three years for misconduct and later followed Malema — who had been expelled by the party — to form the EFF.
In the lead-up to May 2024 general elections, Shivambu, who was then still the EFF deputy president, urged all political parties to unite against the ANC and “unplug” it from all areas. The ANC’s support plunged to 40% in the elections, forcing it to form a government of national unity.
The EFF also suffered a loss of support, losing its spot as the third largest party in the country to MK.
Malatji warned that, if Shivambu were to rejoin the ANC, the party would not survive.
“Floyd has been expelled from YCL [Young Communist League], Sasco [South African Students Congress], Youth League, ANC. He is like that and he’s not a disciplined person. He’s too arrogant and we don’t need him in the ANC,” he said.
“If he comes, he comes, but he’s not going to survive in the ANC. We don’t want people like him; we want people who are disciplined and not arrogant.”