The impeached public protector resigned from the EFF this week.
uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party chief whip Mzwanele Manyi says he will be “recruiting” former public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane to join the party.
The impeached public protector resigned from the EFF on Wednesday morning.
She handed her resignation letter to EFF leader Julius Malema and the party’s top six, a year after she joined the red berets.
Watch MK party members speaking about ‘recruiting’ Busiswe Mkhwebane
“Adv. Busisiwe Mkhwebane is not a member of The MK Party, but she is at liberty to join uMkhonto weSizwe Party just like every South African, including you journalists”- Mk Party Deputy President Dr John Hlophe
“But i must add that I will be recruiting her”- Mk Party chief whip… pic.twitter.com/95lTwvpzoy
— News Live SA (@newslivesa) October 17, 2024
ALSO READ: Busisiwe Mkhwebane could’ve used EFF as ‘halfway station’ – analyst
MK recruitment
While Mkhwebane did not respond to The Citizen‘s request for comment on whether she would be joining the MK party, the party has shown interest in her.
“Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane is not a member of the MK Party, but she is at liberty to join uMkhonto weSizwe Party just like every South African, including you journalists,” deputy president John Hlophe said during a media briefing on Thursday.
“But I must add that I will be recruiting her,” Manyi said, while national spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela said: “If my wife was a member of the EFF and I was MK, I would be agitating that she joins.”
EFF ‘halfway station’
Independent political analyst Sandile Swana told The Citizen that Mkhwebane may have used the EFF as a “halfway station” to her next political home.
Swana explained there were politicians who had joined the EFF, but did not seem a good fit.
“When the occasion came, it became clear that their political DNA is not EFF DNA, they are Zuma supporters. I think the one who clarified that better than anyone else was actually Mzwanele Manyi,” Swana said.
ALSO READ: Is the EFF on a downward path?
“So there’s a sense in which the EFF became a halfway station for certain people who were disgruntled within the ANC. And then when the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party came, their true colours emerged. So some of them, such as Mkhwebane especially, were actually a distraction.”
‘Zuma type politics’
Swana said his believes that Mkhwebane’s “political posture is far much more consistent with Zuma than with the EFF.”
He added that Mkhwebane is likely to play a role in “Zuma-type politics”.
In her resignation letter, Mkhwebane spoke about spending time with her family and thanked the EFF for “extending a helping hand” to her.
ALSO READ: Mkhwebane criticises Judiciary after suffering another legal blow
