Mandisa Mashego says ‘abusive’ EFF members must be dealt with at Nasrec
The red berets' December elective conference is likely to produce more than just a few fireworks.
EFF Gauteng Chairperson Mandisa Mashekgo speaks to media at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court after Adam Catzevelos appeared there on charges resulting from a viral racist video, 10 July 2019. Picture: Neil McCartney
The EFF’s Gauteng chairperson, Mandisa Mashego, has intimated in a Facebook post on Monday that her party may be battling allegations of abuse in its ranks, and that she herself may have been a victim.
She encouraged other EFF members to take their grievances about various forms of abuse to the party’s upcoming elective conference, which is set to be another firecracker affair. In 2015, after the party’s first elective conference in Bloemfontein, a number of senior founding members and members of parliament were suspended or expelled from the EFF over allegations that the inaugural conference had, among other things, been rigged to suit EFF leader Julius Malema.
However, the upcoming conference will also deal with issues other than just who will be elected and re-elected, with organisational matters such as allegations of abuse also likely to be on the agenda at Nasrec, Johannesburg, when the elective conference takes place in December.
After starting with the ominous statement that “#Nasrec is coming,” Mashego wrote on Monday: “In mass politics when leaders misbehave; when they become abusive to the point of being sexually, verbally, emotionally and physically abusive, members have a full right to lodge urgent complaints against them. Members must even have a right to open a criminal case at the SAPS against such leaders because abuse is criminal. Such people are a cancer to the movement.
“But we must not lose our cool to the extent that we humiliate the entire organisation publicly.
“We must be disciplined and wait for a duly constituted assembly to address such injustices against membership.”
She even suggested that she has herself suffered abuse, but was being patient about it.
“We have all been abused at some point or the other. But we wait for the right moment.”
The party plans to hold its elective conference at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg from 13-16 December.
There has been much speculation about whether deputy president of the EFF Floyd Shivambu might consider challenging Malema for the presidency.
Provincial and regional structures in the party have already started meeting to chart how they will be voting.
(Edited by Charles Cilliers)
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