The EFF will name its Braamfontein, Johannesburg, head office after late Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, party leader Julius Malema announced after the funeral of her daughter Zindzi on Friday.
Malema said Zindzi, who died this week at 59, was aware of the plan to honour her mother after he informed late former president Nelson Mandela’s youngest daughter earlier this year.
“I had an interaction with her earlier this year at Mama’s (Madikizela-Mandela's) house in Soweto to discuss the EFF head office being named after Mama Mandela and the school that we have established and we are naming after Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela,” Malema said in an interview with the SABC.
At its national people's assembly in December, the EFF announced that it would build a school in honour of Madikizela-Mandela, who died in April 2018.
According to Malema, Zindzi was an ANC member but she knew that Mama was very close to the EFF and appreciated that opposition parties have a role to play in a democratic South Africa for democracy to work.
“Her association with us she was not making it secret, she was not even shy to defend the position of the EFF against apartheid apologists,” he said, adding that Zindzi backed the party on the land question when it was not fashionable to do so.
Former cabinet minister Jeff Radebe said Zindzi even prepared to lay down her own life by joining Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC’s military wing.
“We’ve lost a heroine of the struggle for freedom and justice in our country. Even though she was the daughter of iconic leaders, Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, she was also a leader in her own right. It is a very sad moment indeed,” said Radebe, who represented the ANC during the funeral service.
Johannesburg mayor Geoff Makhubo said the city had lost one of its foremost daughters.
“She really served this city for most of her life and for that we thank her very much,” Makhubo said.
“She was born here, she struggled here, she joined the Soweto Youth Congress, she was its deputy president. Even when they were banished to Brandfort they came back to Johannesburg.”