Fresh new face in the EFF .
His nickname is ‘the people’s bae’, and he’s the fresh face of Malema’s red brigade. Meet Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, the EFF’s most charming MP
LOVE them or hate them, there’s no doubt the rabble-rousing bunch of men and women in red overalls have made parliament a lot more entertaining since they started filing into the hallowed house. No honourable member is safe when the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are in full, feisty battle mode.
But even among this vibrant, vocal lot one man stands out. A man who’s made it a point of order for throngs of women – and many men – to tune into parliamentary debates on TV.
His name is Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, at 31 the EFF’s youngest MP, the party’s spokesperson and arguably the most charismatic man in politics right now.
His looks and charm have earned him the title “the people’s bae” and he leads the list of eligible bachelors in South Africa.
People really started sitting up and taking notice after his cheeky comments about Maite Nkoana-Mashabane went viral. Mbuyiseni called out the minister of international relations and cooperation for appearing to fall asleep during the debate on President Jacob Zuma’s impeachment.
“I’m worried this minister who we pay so much is sleeping in parliament,” he said to whoops and whistles from his colleagues. “With that position she’s going to fall, Deputy Speaker.”
Poor Deputy Speaker Lechesa Tsenoli was taken to task too. When Tsenoli attempted to reprimand him in the vernacular, Mbuyiseni clucked, “This isn’t the kasi here.”
Gleefully irreverent, he refers to Speaker Baleka Mbete as gogo and short-lived finance minister Des van Rooyen as “weekend special”.
Today Mbuyiseni comes bouncing out of the EFF’s headquarters in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
He wants coffee, he says, and walking beneath posters of Julius Malema pasted high on lampposts we follow him to a café.
“You can’t take pictures,” he says once he’s ordered his latte. “I woke up with a swollen eye. It’s bad.” He studies his face on his iPhone screen, then quips, “People will think I’ve been beaten up in parliament.”
MBUYISENI is the eldest of four children and was raised by a single mother, Zithelile Queen (50), who was a domestic worker in Evaton, Gauteng. “I’d say I was a naughty child,” he says. “I remember my mom calling me to order many times.” But he’s full of admiration for the woman who raised him in tough conditions after his dad walked away from the family.
“As a single black woman in the township everything is against you.”
As a boy Mbuyiseni worked as a gardener on weekends for the family who employed his mother, earning R20 a day. “This could buy you three loaves of bread if you were lucky. I used to give all of it to
my mother but at times she’d say I must keep it for school.”
A diligent student, he harboured hopes of becoming an economist or policy planner. He also helped his sister in her tuck shop and toyed with the idea of becoming an entrepreneur. “But I could never get the books to balance,” he says. “I used to help other people too much. Whenever they asked for credit I’d say, ‘No problem.’ ”
Mbuyiseni was also a keen churchgoer and recalls the bishop calling him up to deliver a sermon during an Easter service when he was 16.
“There were no less than 3 000 people in the church and after the first five minutes everyone was on their feet. After that people asked me to pray for them. For a while I believed I was going to be a pastor.”
He was still involved in the church when he enrolled for a BA degree at Wits University in 2004 – and it was here the seeds for a future in politics were sown.
Floyd Shivambu (34), now deputy president of the EFF, was a senior student and recruited the charismatic first-year into the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) after hearing him speak at a prayer service.
Enchanted by the passion of student politicos, Mbuyiseni took Politics 101. He heard about communist fathers Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin for the first time and became determined to do something about “the suffering of black people”.
“If I’m not participating in the resolution of suffering I’ll never be fulfilled,” he declares.
As he talks, a man comes up and thanks him for bringing change to South Africa. Mbuyiseni shakes his hand and without missing a beat continues with his story.
By 2006 he thought he was destined for a career in academia. In 2013 he was a lecturer at Wits when he received a call from Shivambu shortly after he and Julius Malema (35) had been axed from the ANC Youth League.
“We hadn’t spoken for five years,” he says. “I knew he wanted to talk about forming something outside the ANC and I was 100 percent sure he wouldn’t be able to persuade me.”
Shivambu spoke about clashing with the ANC leadership, the Marikana massacre and the suppression of the youth by the ruling party. Then he persuaded Mbuyiseni to meet Malema – and after this meeting he was convinced that abandoning the ANC was the right thing to do.
“When the ANC suppressed and suffocated the youth of Julius Malema, the ANC refused to be renewed. So it died.”
They had a choice between starting an NGO and forming a political party, which seemed the better option.
“I think it was more painful for Floyd and Julius to leave the ANC than it was for me,” Mbuyiseni says. “They’d given up a lot for the ANC. I used to love the ANC because it represented the voice of black people. But it was no more.”
He was blown away by Malema at the EFF’s first community meeting. “He spoke about economic freedom in the most inspiring, accessible way.”
And when the country went to the polls in 2014 the EFF emerged as the third largest party in the country with 25 MPs.
“I have no doubt in my heart that we’ll run the country,” he says confidently. “The EFF is like tomorrow – it’s coming and you can’t hold it back. We’re in every house in South Africa. Even when couples have pillow talk we’re there.”
The robustness we see on TV is real, he says. “It’s not a show. We interrogate ideas and hold each other accountable.”
He doesn’t mince his words when it comes to Zuma. The president “broke the constitution”, he says, and doesn’t deserve his position. “I have no regard for him. I think he’s a disreputable man, he’s greedy and he’s selfish. Leaders should be selfless – that’s the beginning and the end of leadership.”
MBUYISENI juggles many balls: he’s an MP, a PhD student (he’s completing a doctorate in political sociology) and party spokesperson. How does he balance everything?
“There’s no formula – I just work hard. The hope is that everything I’m engaging in is important for the betterment of all. The fatigue kicks in but you have to push. We’ll rest in the grave.”
When he does occasionally crash out on the couch he watches Game Of Thrones and The Big Bang Theory and listens to music, especially Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba and Simphiwe Dana. He also enjoys jogging and recently joined a gym.
And what about the attention from women? Does he enjoy it? “I don’t know what to think of it,” he says. “I’m not going to engage in it because I don’t know where it comes from.”
So is he involved with someone? Well, it’s said that he is seeing someone but he refuses to talk about her. Economic freedom for the black majority – that’s what he wants to talk about.
“I no longer live for myself.”