EFF top brass visits KZN

After suffering bruising losses in the 2024 elections, the EFF leadership has descended on KwaZulu-Natal on a fact-finding mission after the party’s poor showing in the province on May 29.

The visit began on Friday with a meeting of the central command team, the party's highest decision-making body, where an elections report will be presented. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, secretary-general Marshal Dlamini said the central command would then hold regional general assemblies to meet branch chairpersons and secretaries and find out “what might have gone wrong”.

“The EFF dropped from 10% to 2% in KZN. We lost six seats from eight seats in the legislature and we are left with two. We need to find out what went wrong because things went wrong during the 2024 elections when we dropped the votes here. We dropped drastically and it's a matter that needs to be attended to,” said Dlamini. 

General assemblies will take place in all regions of the province and will be presided over by senior leaders including Julius Malema.

Dlamini said the bottom-up consultative process was crucial in charting a way forward. 

“As leadership, we don't just take decisions from headquarters without listening to structures, so this weekend we are going to be listening to structures.

“CIC (commander in chief Malema) is going to be listening to branches in eThekwini, which is the biggest region, tomorrow and on Sunday, he will be in uMgungundlovu — that is the purpose of this work we are coming here to do,” he explained. 

He added that party structures will have an opportunity to present challenges they encountered during the election campaign, including their assessment of what led to the dismal electoral showing for the party to come up with solutions. 

Dlamini emphasised that to “confront those challenges and find a way forward, we should get a proper diagnosis. We lost votes, and we need those votes back — the EFF will never give up on this province. 

“We won't assume what happened because if we come up with assumptions, we might not listen and this will become a fruitless exercise — accountability is what we are doing. Once we have reports of branches, we will determine what is wrong. 

“It's a bottom-up accountability where we first have to listen to structures, then we can come up with a concrete way forward of what will happen where we lost votes,” he added. 

The party will begin discussions with structures on Saturday. 

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