Jacob Zumaâs Mkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP) is gaining traction, bolstered by high-profile recruits like social media podcaster Darren Campher, now heading its parliamentary research team. Campherâs focus on nationalizing the reserve bank and land expropriation reflects MKPâs radical economic agenda. Meanwhile, the EFF faces internal turmoil, with key defections and leadership tensions. As traditional media wanes, social platforms amplify these shifts, reshaping South Africa’s political landscape amidst deepening factionalism.
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By John Matisonn ___STEADY_PAYWALL___
Former President Jacob Zumaâs Mkhonto weSizwe Party appears to be maintaining momentum recruiting new members including a popular social media podcaster, Darren Campher, who will take charge of its parliamentary research department.
Campher, 33, who won the social commentary award at the DSTV content creator awards last month, will lead a team providing research to Dr John Hlophe, Brian Molefe, Lucky Montana and others on how to advance their policies in parliament.
He told Sizwe Mphofu-Welsh on his SMWX platform that his primary issues are the nationalization of the reserve bank and removing its independent power to set interest rates, appropriating land without compensation, and reversing the constitutional sovereignty of the courts over parliament.
Campher is a significant catch in a media world where podcasts by members of local communities have become more important as the impact of legacy media declines. Platforms like Campherâs on TikTok, Instagram and elsewhere, Sizwe Mphofu-Walshâs SMWX, as well as Biznews, are rapidly growing in reach as more traditional media fade and several newspapers cease to print altogether.
MKP recently announced that 400 IFP members had defected to join the party, while the EFF showed signs of continuing infighting and disarray in the face of their loss of former deputy president Floyd Shivambu and former chairperson Dali Mphofu, SC, to Zumaâs party.
This week Nolubabalo Mcinga, the sixth wife of AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, monarch of Mandelaâs Thembu people, resigned from the EFF and her seat in the National Council of Provinces, without saying what she will do next.
âI have resigned from the party and parliament,â she said. âThatâs all I will confirm now. Iâm not well.â
In the EFF, social mediaâs role was also front and centre, as the party claimed a social media post expressing âdeep disappointment and disillusionment with the recent actions of our presidentâ was fake.
âThe manner in which some of our leaders have been treated is not only unacceptable but also detrimental to the well-being and unity of our movement,â said the apparently fake post.
The EFF will elect office bearers at itsâs forthcoming national peopleâs assembly on December 13 to 15 at Nasrec in Johannesburg, and weekend reports claimed Malema may be putting his thumb on the scale to exclude Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, who has been lobbied to contest for the top job held by Julius Malema or the deputy presidency.
While former secretary Godrich Gardee is favoured by the party hierarchy, Ndlozi was a favourite of younger members. Ndlozi has given no indication that he is interested, but members have noted his absence from EFF events in recent weeks.
City Press reported that Ndlozi may have been suspended from the party as he had not attended key EFF meetings in the past two weeks, and that he was removed from the parliamentary portfolio committee on trade, industry and competition last month.
The row has become personal, in part because he was a close friend of Shivambu, and did not react to calls for him to denounce his friend when he left the EFF. Attacks followed on Ndloziâs partner, Mmabatho Montsho, a well-known activist who had liked Shivambuâs post on Instagram.
In his address to the Gauteng provincial ground forces forum at the Orlando Community Hall in Soweto after Shivambu left, Malema called for leaders who were waiting for the third national assembly to leave at once.
City Press reported that when a social media user posted Gardee as the incoming deputy president, Malema retweeted that post, which many believed was an endorsement.
But is a bigger grudge playing out in the background. Malema has fowled Zumaâs nest repeatedly, first inside the ANC when he turned on him as ANC youth league leader and got expelled, then in parliament repeatedly humiliating him with the chant âpay back the money.â
Recently he said, “if Zuma wants a war, that’s exactly what he will get.â
Responding to Mpofuâs departure, Malema posted on X, formerly Twitter: âOnly two more of your favourites remain and the list will be finalised.â
The factions in the ANC, EFF and IFP that are sympathetic to their agenda of âradical economic transformationâ are steadily galvanizing around Zuma, leaving the EFF weakened and the ANC and EFF both uncertain as to which of their members remains a âsleeperâ, ready to defect when the time is right.
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