EFF lost an opportunity to gain voters: Analyst

Political analyst Lubna Nadvi says the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has lost an opportunity to gain voters ahead of next year’s municipal elections.

The EFF organised nationwide protests outside Clicks stores after a racist advert was published on its website.

The party has called for Clicks to publish the names of senior management who signed off on the advert and for the advertising company to be fired.

Nadvi says the party’s approach to shut down Clicks stores around the country is wrong.

She says the party should have used the advert to find constructive solutions on how to deal with racism in South Africa.

“Political theatrics and just simply going and vandalising Clicks stores, throwing sort of violence at the problem, which is effectively what they engaged in, is not going to resolve the issue. Racism is not going to end just because members of the EFF went and vandalised some Clicks stores. It will end with far more hard work done in terms of dealing with why racism exists and why it manifests itself in certain ways.”

Meanwhile, Nonkululeko Gobodo, an independent, non-executive director at the Clicks Group, says the controversial hair advert is both unacceptable and inexcusable.

Gobodo says she has highlighted the issue with Clicks management asking it to review the processes used to approve the advert.

In the video below, she also says racism and prejudice against women are crimes, and the country cannot move forward unless these are immediately addressed in society and business:

Interdict

On Tuesday, Clicks won an interim interdict against the members of the EFF from intimidating and threatening Clicks employees and customers as well as inciting violence against the company’s commercial operations.

In the video below, the SABC’s Samkelo Maseko speaks about the story:

In the video below, EFF says they did not call on supporters to vandalise Clicks stores: