The Eastern Cape, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) provincial command team are calling for the immediate resignation of their leader Julius Malema accusing him of supporting foreign nationals in South Africa whom they deem “illegal” among other issues.
In a press release addressed to Malema, the Eastern Cape EFF said based on the assessment of recent Local Government Electoral outcomes, they found Malema being behind the party’s poor performance due to his ‘unloved’ association with former president Jacob Zuma, support for immigrants and frequent attacks on the Judiciary.
“Based on the assessment of our local government electoral outcomes, the EFF Eastern Cape Provincial Command Team convened this morning to take stock of our performance. Part of this assessment included our view of the CIC’s (Commander in Chief) role in eroding the electoral margins of our movement,” read the statement.
“A more balanced approach was to empirically consign the conduct, behavioral attitude and the utterances of the CIC both in the course of, and during the elections. The collapsed coalition pacts were closely studied, too.
“Your Excellency, you are hurting the EFF. The EFF brand has been eroded, resulting in our own supporters losing confidence in the movement. The attacks on the judiciary, illegal immigrants’ soundbites, the ill-conceived association with President Zuma and the long-winded abuse of our own commissars, chiefly explains the underlying currents behind our poor showing.
“We take a dim view of your hardline stance on illegal immigrants. Our cardinal pillars, particularly on Africa’s integration, are not fashioned to champion a ‘free-for-all’, opening of borders policy.
“We also took a deem view that our fighters who were on the ground, but could not be elected because of your very attacks on the courts and endorsement of illegal foreigners, were subject to insults at our press briefing.”
The statement comes barely two days after Malema vowed to continue standing with Zimbabweans and other foreigners in his country even if it meant losing votes and leadership of the party.
“I’m not prepared to take a platform and say foreigners must go home. I would rather not be the president of South Africa. I will be the president of my children. To say I must go and tell these hungry Zimbabweans to leave here and when I tell them to leave I send them to where?” Malema said.
This comes at a time when thousands of holders of the Zimbabwe Exemption Permit (ZEP) are risking losing jobs and deportation from South Africa because the government there has not yet indicated whether it will renew their permits which are set to expire on 31 December 2021.
UPDATE
The EFF has since distanced itself from the statement which was purported to be from the EFF in the Eastern Cape.
EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and EFF chairperson in the Eastern Cape Yazini Tetyana took to social media to clear the air on the statement, calling it “fake”.
— Mbuyiseni Ndlozi (@MbuyiseniNdlozi) November 17, 2021
Tetyana told TimesLIVE the party will not entertain the fake letter.
“I don’t know where it comes from. Actually, we don’t care where it comes from. It’s fake news. It doesn’t matter what they wanted to achieve, they will never divide the EFF. We will not waste energy and time investigating who did it, it doesn’t matter to us. We are too busy for that,” he said.
FAKE ALERT|| FAKE ALERT
This is Statement is fake. We dismiss all this content with contempt. A desperate attempt by enemy forces. pic.twitter.com/ht2HNTDXYp
— Yazini Tetyana (@YaziniTetyana) November 17, 2021
