‘Deserting the EFF is an assassination attempt’: Malema

EFF leader Julius Malema has described desertion of the party at this critical moment as an “assassination attempt”.

The statement comes amid a mass exodus of high-profile members, including Floyd Shivambu, Dali Mpofu, Mzwanele Manyi and Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who have all joined Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP).

The latest departure from the EFF is founding member Alfred Motsi, who has also joined the MKP.

Malema made the remark during the EFF's Gauteng general assembly on Sunday.

“We must register today and for the future generation to remember the deserting of the EFF at this critical moment in our liberation struggle constitutes an assassination attempt,” he said.

“It's important to not individualise this moment of infiltration and betrayal of the EFF but to place it within the above historical context.”

Malema expressed gratitude that some of the party's prominent leaders who left the EFF chose to depart instead of attempting to dismantle the organisation from within.

“The greatest fear should not be our own death but what would have happened to this revolutionary movement if the path to kill us was chosen rather than the path to abandon us. Perhaps we must be thankful the path to desert us was chosen instead. Perhaps we must be thankful we did not die.”

Malema highlighted the party's recent experience with dangerous levels of infiltration, saying it was perpetrated by founders who became “sleeper agents and double agents who sat among us but reported elsewhere".

“The people who have left this organisation have not only led this infiltration and betrayal, but even had the audacity to prescribe to us how we must perceive and respond to their infiltration. To defect from the organisation you founded, in favour of an organisation that recently surpassed your own organisation in elections, is opportunism,” Malema said.

He criticised former president and MKP leader Zuma, describing him as an old man who has “failed” to unite people in previous years.

“Only the EFF can unite black people in South Africa. How do you say you can unite people when you are 82 years old, having failed to unite them for the past 82 years. You think you can do it now?

“We are not going to sell the future generation for the dreams of an 82-year-old man who is corrupt to the core. We are going to fight corruption under Jacob Zuma and even after Zuma. Zuma is corrupt. We were not misled about the corruption of Zuma. [President] Cyril Ramaphosa is corrupt. We were not misled about the corruption of Cyril Ramaphosa. We don’t just talk about fighting corruption. We will be on the streets on Tuesday to fight Phala Phala,” Malema said.

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