Some South Africans doubt Shivambu’s leadership capacity

Some South Africans oppose Floyd Shivambu’s proposal to launch a new party, citing one member of his team with criminal cases hanging over his head as a reason for the mistrust.

Shivambu, who is known to have hopped between parties, announced that he is currently convening the Mayibuye Consultation Process, alongside scores of members of the recently founded organisation.

Ordinary South Africans are taken aback that the embattled politician – who was recently axed as the uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s secretary general – officially announced that Rivers of Living Waters Ministries’ Pastor Stephen Zondo is Mayibuye’s national chaplain, knowing that he is facing a litany of sexual offences against some of his church members, some as young as seven years old.

The citizens do not trust that Shivambu deserves to occupy a leadership role, following the shocking disclosure.

“People who want to lead in society need to be clean without a blemish in their record. So we really need clean leaders so that people can see that we have clean leaders and that we have a mandate to follow them and that the leaders can be trusted. But we cannot allow criminals and people who have been involved in atrocious acts to run our country. We cannot have leaders who live lives which are not aligned with our constitution. We can’t accept that,” says one citizen.

“No, I don’t think we can trust Floyd because he has tried it before with other parties. So what’s new? What is it that he will do differently now? I do not believe he can do anything else,” says another South African.

Zondo, who is currently facing two separate trials for sexual offences against some members of his congregation, opened the briefing with prayer before Shivambu took to the stage.

Shivambu told journalists that he does not regret his choice to include the embattled pastor in his team, claiming that he has not been convicted of any crime.

“He has been playing multiple leadership roles in his community and even in the other organisations that we came from he was a good leader and otherwise other very large nationwide inter-religious movements which he led. A lot of religious leaders went to him to say that – please pay close attention to this process so that we still have a voice as pastors and people that are looking after a larger section of our society so we did not make a mistake,” says Shivambu.

Shivambu is meanwhile still beating around the bush on whether he is still a member of the MK Party, which he accused of having inept officials.

He argues that the MKP is not a viable vehicle to fight South Africa’s battles and urges citizens not to believe the party’s promises.

Shivambu also used the moment to publicly apologise for calling MK Party spokesperson, Nhlamulo Ndhlela, a drunk and drug addict.

The former MKP secretary general made the move just a few hours after Ndhlela filed a R3 million lawsuit against him for failing to comply with a letter of demand that ordered him to withdraw the disparaging remarks.

“Before I address this, I would just like to say: stay away from drugs. Stay away from alcohol. Particularly members of parliament, and member of leadership of different political parties. Drugs will never bring you anything good, in fact they will make you do a lot of mistakes. But really and unconditionally, I retract the statement that I have made under the guidance of the collective leadership,” said Shivambu, who is also the former deputy president of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Although he still maintains that MKP isn’t a weapon that South Africans should trust to fight its battles, he says he shares mutual respect for some of the party’s members, like its leader, Jacob Zuma. Written by Odirile Rabalao