Embattled EFF president Julius Malema is scheduled to go on a charm offensive across KwaZulu-Natal in a bid to garner support for the party ahead of the municipal elections 18 months away.
Marshall Dlamini, the party’s secretary general described the engagements as a bottom-up consultative process with various branches.
“The reality is we lost votes in this province and we must get them back. It’s an important consultative process to find out what went wrong,” said Dlamini.
He steered clear of the question of whether the EFF provincial leadership will take the fall for the mediocre performance. “In the last elections, we were at 10% in terms of the vote share in KwaZulu-Natal. This year we slumped to 2%.
“The consultations will determine what corrective steps will be taken,” he said.
The EFF has predominantly done well within various campuses in the province. The party’s student wing controls the majority of campuses and the red berets had banked on the student population to garner sufficient votes in KZN, but it wasn’t to be.
The EFF in a show of force also launched its election manifesto in the province bringing throngs of supporters to Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium, which, however, did not translate to votes.
Leading up to the elections, Malema had told his charges that he wanted nothing less than one million votes in the province.
The EFF is expected to hold its National People’s Assembly to elect new leadership where Malema seeks re-election.
Dlamini is tipped to ascend to the deputy presidency left vacant by Floyd Shivambu who defected to the MP Party.
The EFF was among the parties of choice in KZN during the last local government elections in 2021. The red berets went on to command kingship status in various councils, co-governing with the IFP. Sour relations between the two parties resulted in the EFF recalling all its deployees who serve as deputy mayors under the IFP.
