Johannesburg – The so-called Economic Freedom Fighters described former ANC Youth League deputy leader Ronald Lamola as a “narrow-minded careerist” on Thursday.

“[Lamola] will do anything in his power, including begging dictators for his personal freedom, thus sacrificing the cause for economic freedom in our lifetime,” former league spokesperson Floyd Shivambu said in a statement on behalf of the EFF.

“Mr Lamola must basically shut up, because he does not know what he talking about and in any way, no one takes him serious (sic).”

New party

Shivambu was reacting to Lamola calling on the youth not to support Julius Malema’s proposed new party.

In an interview with The Star newspaper, Lamola said the expelled African National Congress Youth League leader’s forum of “radical militants” was nothing but “misguided militancy”.

He also accused Malema of hijacking the ANCYL’s resolutions on economic freedom taken at its national conference in Midrand in 2011.

Shivambu in turn said Lamola had drifted away from those resolutions and joined the chorus of “neo-liberal reformists”.

“His zigzagging on principle is evidence enough that he can never be trusted with any task, because he is only concerned about individual progress at the expense of the struggle for economic emancipation,” Shivambu said.

“True economic freedom fighters will not listen to Lamola’s faint call because they know that he is a misguided, narrow-minded, and opportunist careerist, who cannot separate between interests of a generation and his personal interests.”

‘Shenanigans’

Shivambu warned that if Lamola continued to make such comments, the EFF would “expose him” for the many “individual dealings and shenanigans” in the lead up to the ANC’s national conference in Mangaung last year.

“Mr Lamola makes hilarious comments… he believes that this struggle can be pursued through the [President Jacob] Zuma National Task Team (ZNTT), which replaced the elected structures of the ANC Youth League…”

The ANCYL’s national executive committee was disbanded by the ANC earlier this year and replaced with a national task team.

During his interview with The Star, Lamola dismissed Malema as an “expert of insults”.

“I am not going to entertain that man. I don’t take him serious and I have never taken him serious,” he was quoted as saying.

– SAPA