Shivambu says EFF is a mini-clone of ANC

The EFF is a “mini clone” of the ANC and this needed to change.

This was said by the party’s deputy president Floyd Shivambu to about 200 EFF members at the East London ICC on Saturday.

Shivambu was speaking during a “briefing session” of EFF members, including 78 councillors and five MPLs, ahead of the party’s national people’s assembly in December.

Shivambu, who was accompanied by EFF national chairperson Dali Mpofu, said the EFF needed an “organisational” restructuring, and to change how their structures were “demarcated”.

“It terms of demarcation, we are currently the mini-clones of the ANC.

“We are very similar when it comes to the way the ANC is organised, in the regions, subregions, provinces, but we want to have a different redesign in terms of these issues.”

Shivambu added: “We want to build an organisation that is not a clone of the ANC.

“We have actually fundamentally achieved that politically and ideologically.”

On the sidelines of the event, Shivambu told the Dispatch that legal action was currently being taken against the Eastern Cape legislature for kicking out EFF MPLs for wearing overalls and their red hard hats during a Sopa debate in July.

“We are going to go to court and we have also resolved to take political action.”

On July 2, EFF provincial chair, Yazini Tetyana, Portia Qotoyi, Litha Zibula, Bulelwa Dial and Mlamli Makhetha, were kicked out of the legislature by speaker Helen Sauls-August for dressing “inappropriately”.

However, they refused to vacate the legislature, forcing Sauls-August to bar them from participating in the debate.

Shivambu also responded to social media criticism of EFF leader Julius Malema, over perceived bullying of spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi.

This was after videos circulated from the EFF’s sixth birthday celebrations showing Malema yelling orders to Ndlozi and sending him on errands to fetch his water bottle, went viral on social media.

“That is nonsense man ... It’s done by fools,” Shivambu said.