No rationale behind voting with the DA - ex-EFF treasurer calls out red berets
20 March 2017
Johannesburg - The Democratic Alliance remains a defender of white monopoly capital and it is astounding that the Economic Freedom Fighters decided to vote with the party following the 2016 municipal elections, says former EFF treasurer general Magdalene Moonsamy.
"I would never be dragged into the historical blunder of having sold the blood and tears of our people," Moonsamy told Jacaranda FM on Sunday.
The party announced in 2016 that Moonsamy had resigned from her role as the party's treasurer general and Member of Parliament in order to focus on her legal career.
The EFF's decision to vote with the DA allowed the DA to oust the African National Congress and govern in the Eastern Cape's Nelson Mandela Bay municipality as well as in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Mogale City in Gauteng.
"The manner that I have been conscientised and socialised in a Marxist Leninist ideological frame work it would never [agree]. I don't see any kind of logic to say you are not in a coalition but would vote them, never," said Moonsamy.
"I am not even mincing my words about it, it's not possible," she added.
'Not for discussion'
Moonsamy said she did not understand how the red berets reached the decision knowing their own goals versus the DA's views on white monopoly capital.
"It's not a consideration I would make, not something I would lose sleep over or something I would sit down and have a casual discussion about. It's not for discussion in my mind," she said.
She told the radio station that is was also clear that she was no longer an EFF member.
Moonsamy said the party needed to clarify its ideological position.
"You can't be caught up voting with the DA on one issue, going with them into coalition on another, agreeing with them tactically at any point and still believe you can belong to or subscribe to something that compromises the ideological backbone of a leftist movement," said the former EFF treasurer.
ANC raising the bar
Moonsamy, who was also in the ANC but left when former president of the ANC Youth League Julius Malema was expelled, praised the ruling party for including a female candidate among its choices for the party's next president.
The ANC will elect new leadership when its President Jacob Zuma steps down at its 54th national elective conference in December.
"Women started off as mobilisers, campaigners, caterers. You see it today in political parties when there's need for food they say to the woman: 'Go check if lunch is ready.' [It's] not in the constitution but it's an unspoken language," said Moonsamy.
She said current global politics show that there is a fear of emasculation, not only in terms of gender contestation, but in the contestation of resources.
"The bigger picture is that our politics cannot be defined by the contestation of resources. You will sell your soul in the process, sell your people in the process," she said.
"You need to raise the bar and the bar is being raised by the ANC," she added.
