Armed with a lawyer’s letter questioning why EFF chairperson Dali Mpofu was not shortlisted, Shivambu accused the committee of steamrolling the process.

He also slammed the committee’s decision to interview all 14 candidates in one day.

Shivambu was attending the committee for the first time, and said the meetings had occurred during the election campaigning and they could not leave that to attend the meetings.

“As EFF we object profusely to the manner in which the shortlisting was done. We are going to support any legal action against the process,” he said a few minutes before the interviews started.

He called for the criteria of shortlisting to be clarified and re-opened, and committee members to start the process again, “fairly”.

Had they been part of the process, he said, there were other candidates they would have suggested for shortlisting.

Chairperson Makhosi Khoza said the EFF were holding the process to ransom.

She said backtracking a few minutes before the interviews started was not the right way to do business.

Their lawyers would respond to the letter, before overriding Shivambu and starting the interviews, 20 minutes later than scheduled.

News24