When the ethically bankrupt and morally corrupt team up, things will get smashed

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” – F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“They were careless people.” 

When Floyd Shivambu resigned from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), its leader, Julius Malema, encouraged EFF “ground forces” to remain loyal. This faux revolutionary language has become worn out – talk of “ground forces” and “fighters” when really the only “war” being waged is within the EFF for positions and access to resources.

Its members’ duplicitous donning of red overalls while defending Gucci lifestyles remains an insult to every working South African. 

Duplicity aside, questions were immediately raised about the future of the EFF. The populist “revolution” Malema touted started with 6.35% of the vote in 2014, 10.8% in 2019 and this year 9.52%. 

Can we really be surprised that this ongoing broedertwis between Malema and Shivambu has now led to the latter’s resignation? Or, that Shivambu is joining the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party even as screeds were written about the deep political meaning of it all? Shivambu, Jacob Zuma and the MK party are a perfect match.

Malema has cut a rather lonely and defensive figure since then. Perhaps now we will move away from the consistent media narrative touting Malema as “future president”? What such thin analysis often (not always) failed to seriously ask is what Malema actually stands for, apart from fiery rhetoric and chaos.

Like the MK party, the EFF was formed out of grievance; in fact both also represent the splintering of the ANC. The EFF’s role since it contested its first election in 2014 has been mostly to undermine democratic institutions while projecting a so-called progressive facade.

Its embrace of impeached former Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is a small example of this, as well as Malema’s destructive role on the Judicial Service Commission. He took up that position seemingly only to litigate his crude form of race politics.

Like a true populist, he uses a molecule of truth to distort and divide. Consistently this has largely been met with insipid silence from those around him.

As retired judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal and Freedom Under Law boardchairperson Azhar Cachalia said in his recent Rhodes University lecture, “Is the JSC fit for purpose? A reflection over 15 years”, Malema’s comments during the deliberation over David Unterhalter’s candidacy “amounted to crude racial stereotyping and revealed the depths of the discourse to which the JSC had now sunk”.

He quotes verbatim what Malema said of Unterhalter:

“A well-experienced judge who has been before us many times … who has a sense of entitlement and superiority … [which was apparent from how he addressed the Commission]. I like the racism of the Afrikaners because they don’t hide it … I will never support subtle racism that masquerades itself as being intelligent … I don’t agree with the minister that he was trying to be clever. He was being himself. A person who looks down at very senior judges because they are of a different colour … We have dealt with such characters before who felt they could go to the Constitutional Court … He comes across as arrogant … and intellectually superior. The racism of liberals … That’s what I wanted to say about him.”

This is but one example. There are many others, including Malema’s opportunistic stance against former president Zuma in Parliament, essentially dragging Parliament into the sewer along with him by disruptions and name-calling.

We recall “Pay back the money!”.  While the EFF was playing petty performative politics, none of it was about a principled defence of the rule of law. As citizens we had to endure entire State of the Nation Addresses of undignified disruption.

That is what the EFF is. Opportunistic, populist, dangerous. 

In the real world, however, other scenarios are playing themselves out slowly and awkwardly. 

VBS Mutual Bank chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi, now jailed, has provided testimony which outlines a meeting he says took place between Malema and Shivambu at the party’s Sandton penthouse (yes…) during the height of the Nkandla saga, given the EFF’s criticism of the bank for giving a loan to Zuma.

Matodzi said:

“The EFF had started a campaign of mentioning VBS Mutual Bank in its political rallies through its president Julius Malema. As chair of VBS Mutual Bank, I decided Malema and the EFF should be approached for VBS Mutual Bank to explain its position and how the loan was granted. Present there [at the meeting in Sandton] was Malema, Floyd Shivambu and [EFF secretary-general] Marshall Dlamini.

“Dlamini did not participate. I explained VBS Mutual Bank’s position and the fact that the EFF’s negative commentary about the VBS Mutual Bank/Zuma transaction was damaging VBS Mutual Bank’s reputation. I further informed them that VBS Mutual Bank can donate R5m immediately and R1m per month to the EFF. I also made it clear the amount could only be deposited into a VBS Mutual Bank account, and the EFF should therefore open a bank account with VBS Mutual Bank.”

Matodzi says that after the meeting in Sandton, Shivambu provided him with a VBS Mutual Bank account belonging to his brother Brian’s company, Sgameka, to make the “donations” without a traceable link to the party.

As Daily Maverick editor Branko Brkic wrote in July:

“Pauli van Wyk’s (who has doggedly pursued this story despite unacceptable threats and abuse from the EFF and others on social media – ed), exposé has shown that Malema has broken at least four laws:

“1. He received fraudulently acquired monies, taken from the poorest of the poor, which he clearly knew about – the provenance of the payments was even spelled out on Mahuna banking statements. (If you want to think of the morality of this act, just think of Robin Hood, but exactly the opposite.)

“2. He disguised the fact that he was the recipient of the money by hiding behind his cousin, Matsobane Phaleng, a clear case of money laundering.

“3. He used the bank card of the company that was not in his name, which is fraudulent.

“4. Every time he made a purchase with the stolen money, he committed a crime (as in Jacob Zuma’s 783 counts).”

These allegations relate to fleecing the poorest of the poor. 

No doubt other EFF members will follow Shivambu’s exit, thinking the MK party will save their hides and provide future access to state largesse in some way. There is no honour among thieves, as the saying goes. 

The MK party, another party that stands for nothing apart from undermining our democracy, declaring war on the Constitution and welcoming the corrupt into its midst, should take care or it will suffer the same fate – its first-time 14.8% of the vote is a complex mix of voters with few other alternatives and capitalising on divisions in KwaZulu-Natal and the Zuma “cult of personality”.

The party has provided a safe haven for the likes of impeached judge John Hlophe and Zuma himself. Duduzile Zuma, whose recklessness knows no bounds, has been playing fast and loose with party lists while her father watches with glee. (Questions have and should be raised about the legality of spiriting members into Parliament and chopping and changing party lists).

Much has been written about “heavyweight” Shivambu joining the MK party and bringing his intellectual prowess (sic) to the task of Parliament.

But being an effective parliamentarian requires work, mostly behind the scenes, and it means playing a constructive role within committees. Bluster wears thin after a while.

Does Shivambu actually have the desire to do the work of democracy amid the capriciousness and shambles that is the MK party? Time will tell. As it will about the MK party itself, born out of an octogenarian’s grievance.  

If we moved beyond the noise, we would see these politicians for who they really are. The noise is strategic; it is meant to distract us from their nefarious activities. It is dressed up as a pro-poor message, vilifying white people, vilifying the Government of National Unity (GNU) or those who defend the Constitution.

The aim is to divide us, to use the law as a tool to destroy our courts and our institutions, and it comes dressed up in many ways. Around the world anti-democratic forces are at work and so we should not be complacent about the threat that the MK party and the EFF (and it must be said, the likes of the xenophobic Gayton McKenzie, who finds himself in the GNU in a strange twist of luck and fate) are to democracy. 

And the Lesufi-type strain in the ANC itself would no doubt also enjoy cosying up to a weakened Malema for their own personal gain.

Sometimes we are required to retreat into silence, far above the media din of a headline-grabbing news conference, and in so doing we are better able to discern how ethically bankrupt the likes of Malema and Shivambu ultimately are. DM