POLITRICKING | EFF student command’s Sihle Lonzi talks ‘VBS Floyd’, elections, and vetting prospective fighters

“We are not like the ANC [African National Congress] Youth League, calling a press conference to discuss who must become an MEC, yes concerns are there but they are not central to the discussion.”

This is how Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Student Command (SC) president Sihle Lonzi dismisses those within his organisation who are keen to discuss names of those who should be elected, to take the party forward when it holds its third national people’s assembly (NPA) in December.

The NPA is an elective conference that will see new leadership, including a central command team, elected. The event, set to take place between 12 and 15 December, is likely to retain the red beret's current leader, Julius Malema, as the organisation’s president.

But unlike the last two conferences, there are question marks surrounding the position of his deputy, following the shock exit of his long-time comrade and co-founder of the EFF Floyd Shivambu from the party in August.

Lonzi, who spares no one when it comes to political jabs, has strong views about Shivambu, who quit the EFF to join former statesman Jacob Zuma’s Umkhonto weSizwe Party, the ANC, and the inaugural EFFSC Mpho Moroloane, who followed in Shivambu’s footsteps several weeks ago.

The young politician, who’s modelled some of his public appearances on the fighters’ firebrand leader, is this week’s guest on Politricking with Tshidi Madia, a politics podcast by EWN.

He deliberates over the EFF’s upcoming conference, evolution of the student command, the fighters’ performance in the 2024 general elections, and the organisation’s future prospects.

Lonzi has the task of marrying the agitations of young members of the organisation, which in recent months have included frustrations at what’s been perceived as the rewarding of rejected ANC leaders with top posts in the EFF.

In recent years, the likes of Carl Niehaus, Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, and Mzwanele Manyi, who’s since quit the EFF in favour of the MK Party, were not only welcomed by the organisation, but turned into members of Parliament to represent the organisation.

“At a policy level, most certainly we do have a big problem, with someone who joins yesterday and is immediately elevated to form part of important organisational meetings,” he said.

Lonzi questioned whether the time had come for the EFF to consider a vetting period for those who wanted to be in the party, which could be anything between six months up to two years, arguing this would allow for the red berets to see who is a true fighter versus someone attempting to infiltrate the organisation.

He used the phrase infiltrate deliberately in reference to Shivambu, whom he dubbed “VBS Floyd,” over the former EFF number two’s alleged role in the looting of collapsed mutual bank VBS.

Lonzi went a step further, questioning why Shivambu had brought the likes of Manyi and Magasela Mzobe to the party, the former quitting the EFF shortly after the elections to join the MK Party, with Lonzi suggesting this was part of a greater plot by the former deputy.

“Have we, through our outright flexibility in terms of who joins and participates, been too open and that’s allowed for a lot of infiltration? We don’t discuss it at a level of positions, but of saying before we entrust someone to join our organisation, our meetings, there ought to be some period, six months, a year, or two years… to say, let’s vet these people - are we dealing with a fighter here or infiltration in our movement?

“These people sit in highly confidential meetings of the EFF, [where] we plan, we strategise our election objectives… after inviting these people, they leave the EFF to join the MKP and then invite him to join the MK… as young people we are very suspicious… what is the agenda of these people to begin with?” said Lonzi.

SHIVAMBU LIED

He further criticised Shivambu for the role he played in the lead-up to the elections.

The then-deputy president of the EFF had been the convener of the organisation in KwaZulu-Natal, a province which saw it going from 10% to 2% of the voter share.

“Elections demonstrated to us that people we had sent to KZN, in the form of the former DP, did not do the work that needed to be done. In fact, they were lying to us when they came to our meetings, and said we have party agents here, we’ve got VDs [voting districts] here - it was not true,” said the EFFSC president.

“They were not reporting the truth”.

For this, Lonzi said the entire organisation, not just the secretary general, should be held responsible, with a greater wrath being reserved for those sent to work in different communities but failed to take the party’s leadership into confidence about the real lay of the land.

When it comes to the EFFSC, which was described by Malema as “useless”, in 2019, Lonzi argued there has been some progress, and that over the years, it had become less reliant on its mother body.

“We call leadership less, we run our own programmes, if you look at what’s happening in campuses, typically we call EFF leaders, but if you see now, we’ve been sending leaders of the EFFSC, needing some reinforcement here and there,” said Lonzi, who while prepping young people for the upcoming NPA, is simultaneously trying to drum up support for the red berets in current student representative council elections across the country.