Johannesburg - Disgruntled EFF MP Andile Mngxitama faces possible disciplinary action by the party after he held a press conference, at which he attacked the leadership of the party, this week.
Mngxitama and MP Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala also said on the morning of President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address that they would not be attending and distanced themselves from plans to interrupt the president’s speech.
Mngxitama claimed EFF leader Julius Malema and chief whip Floyd Shivambu had tried to persuade the ANC to help them remove seven EFF MPs, in exchange for not interrupting the Sona speech. Litchfield-Tshabalala said the EFF was targeting Zuma in order to get what it wanted from the ANC and there were talks between the party’s leadership and senior figures in the governing party.
Mngxitama has been at the centre of ructions in the party ever since he declined nomination for a place on the “command team” at its “people’s assembly” in December.
Malema said in Cape Town on Friday the party would be meeting to discuss Mngxitama’s actions and “serious decisions will be taken about him, because we have reached a point where we cannot tolerate ill-discipline”.
He said if the MP had any evidence of wrongdoing he should submit it to the party’s disciplinary chairperson or, if he didn’t trust him, the police.
Referring to allegations of misuse of party funds, Malema said the EFF’s financial statements were in the process of being audited and there was nothing untoward in them.
“We know which statements they have, and an announcement will be made at an appropriate moment; how they got those statements. There is nothing incriminating about the statements of the EFF.”
In response to Mngxitama’s criticism of the EFF decision to retain North West provincial secretary Papiki Babuile despite a murder conviction against him, Malema suggested that Babuile had not been given a fair trial and said he was trying to appeal.
“We warned of that judge before Papiki was convicted, that there was some interference in that case,” Malema said.
He said the judge had refused leave to appeal and had also not furnished Babuile with the judgment, which he required in order to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal directly.
“The young man has not received a judgment. He’s sitting in jail, denied his rights, because a judge decides to go on holiday or decides not to write a judgment,” Malema said, adding that they’d been waiting for three months.
He questioned why Mngxitama had waited until the morning of the State of the Nation address to announce he would boycott the EFF’s “pay back the money campaign”, when both he and Litchfield-Tshabalala had been in the party’s caucus meeting the day before, when it had discussed its strategy.
“If you love the organisation so much, why would you call a press conference on the day of the State of the Nation, where you know the EFF has a programme of action. You love the organisation, yet you want to divert it. You say people want to go back to the ANC, yet you act in a manner that is actually protecting the ANC.” He said the “train of economic freedom” was unstoppable. “I’m warning them because anyone who is going to stand in front of this train, it will crush you (sic).”
EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said yesterday that he couldn’t say what the outcome of Friday’s meeting had been. “As soon as leadership is in a position to communicate something, it will do so.” Mngxitama’s phone was switched off.
Political Bureau