uBaba has plenty of room for his guests in the rondavels that were built as part of the “security upgrade” at his homestead back in 2009. (Photo by Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images)
Thursday.
The stage-managed defection of senior leaders of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to the Umkhonto weSize (MK) party appears – as predicted here some time ago – to be chugging along merrily as the year comes to a close.
Jacob Zuma’s party has been nibbling away steadily at the EFF since it gobbled up the smaller parties to the ANC’s alleged left in the weeks after the elections, with its appetite increasing rather than decreasing on a defection by defection basis.
The path between Winnie Mandela House and Nxamalala village is becoming increasingly well worn these days and is set to be trod by more pairs of previously red shod feet ahead of the EFF conference – and the kick off of the festive season.
With a month to go before the Red Berets go to their third elective conference, one time national chairperson Dali Mpofu is the latest to abandon ship and jump on the Nxamalala bandwagon.
Mpofu follows Floyd Shivambu, Mzwanele Manyi, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and Magasela Mozobe into the ranks of the Zuma party; the latest in a long line of Julius Malema’s former comrades to desert him.
No conference food, delegate bags and four days of massaging the leader’s ego for the knife in the back brigade this December.
The MK party doesn’t do elective conferences.
uBaba has supreme power to appoint – and disappoint – when it comes to who gets what and who goes where in MK, so Floyd will get to spend his festive Decembering, rather than trying to survive another elective conference.
Malema is set to be elected uncontested along with a slate that sees Goodrich Gardee replacing Sivambu as deputy president, third term loading as head of what is left of the party he launched after being expelled from the ANC in 2012.
A win for team Malema is guaranteed, but there will be far more celebration going on at Nxamalala over the festive season than there will at Nasrec, where EFF national people’s assembly will take place.
Zuma’s annual Christmas shindig is gonna be even more lit than usual, with both the removal of the ANC’s parliamentary majority and the EFF’s leadership of the opposition to celebrate.
The state capture squad are all back on the public purse – this time as MK Party members of parliament or representing it in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature – so there will be another big win to celebrate there.
Things are gonna be lit.
Crowded too.
It’s not just the wave of defections that are taking place from the EFF.
The ANC is still losing members to the Zuma party and its former deputy provincial chairperson Willies Mchunu is now the KwaZulu-Natal convener of MK.
Mchunu has always been a Zuma loyalist and had been agitating in favour of working with the MK party in the province since the elections, so his move to the old man’s party was inevitable.
But Mchunu’s won’t be the last resignation letter that ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo receives between now and Christmas, so a full house at Nxamalala when the festivities kick off on Boxing Day is guaranteed.
Crowded, but fortunately, uBaba has plenty of room for his guests in the rondavels that were built as part of the “security upgrade” at his homestead back in 2009, courtesy of R238 million unlawfully plundered from the public purse.
They were meant to be for his police protectors, back when he first became head of state, but given the old man’s reputation for playing the long game, perhaps this Christmas may have been what he really had in mind when he had the firepool fitted.
The rondavels were looking a bit run down the last time I was there and the pool could have done with a scrub and a new Creepy Crawley, but that was long before uBaba’s new party arrived on the political scene.
Zuma’s fortunes have improved, somewhat, since then.
The MK party MPs who were fired to accommodate the state capture squad in parliament say they are all giving the old man R10 000 a month each, so he should have the money to finally clean the pool and give the amphitheatre a coat of paint.
Shivambu’s not likely to complain if he hasn’t though.
Floyd will also be hoping that the old man has forgotten that it was him who helped lead the campaign in parliament to force him to pay back the money for the rondavel he will be sleeping in over Christmas, so the last thing he will be doing is complaining about the quality of his lodgings.
It’s gonna be lit.
