In a shocking turn of events for the EFF, Floyd Shivambu, who was the deputy president, resigned and announced that he was joining the MK Party, founded by Jacob Zuma.

If you’ve been following party politics in South Africa for the past 15 years, you’ll know how staggering this is. Zuma, back when he was ANC president, was the reason Malema and Shivambu were tossed out of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL). Zuma himself has now been thrown out of the ANC after very openly forming his own party, which ran in the recent national elections and basically destroyed the ANC’s majority.

Shivambu has been EFF leader Julius Malema’s righthand man since the ANCYL days. The party saw a shock drop in support to 9.52% in this year’s election. Former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s breakaway MK faction singlehandedly changed the political landscape with 14.58% of the votes, pushing the ANC below its majority for the first time and effectively stealing the EFF’s position on radical and populist politics. 

The EFF has long been plagued with a lack of internal democracy, with Malema an authoritarian figure. Over 200 EFF public representatives were ousted last year for failing to pay to bus in supporters to the party’s birthday rally. Allegations of corruption have dogged Malema and Shivambu too, such as the VBS banking scandal, which they both allegedly benefitted from, according to the former bank chairman turned state witness.  

What does this mean for SA? While the EFF and MK are equally troubling to our democracy in terms of their anti-constitutionalism and corruption-plagued leaders, they actually differ ideologically: MK leans more towards a ruralitarian, traditional chauvinism while EFF positions itself as more Marxist. If EFF declines and MK grows at its expense, it will give Zuma’s party even more power, a troubling outcome.