This is the most dangerous year for the EFF. Its handling of the land issue will decide whether it increases its 6% of national vote to 14% or negotiates its way back into the ANC to replace the South African Communist Party.
Since the 2014 elections, its detractors have been writing the party’s obituary. When the former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema began gunning for Jacob Zuma in and outside Parliament, some EFF supporters questioned the wisdom of this being a sustainable campaign issue.
The EFF scored victories beyond its 6%. Zuma was found to be a constitutional delinquent, a label he’ll never recover from. Having tried for years to avoid paying back the money, he was forced to pay R7m for undue benefit for nonsecurity upgrades at his Nkandla private home, and he may yet have to pay benefits tax.
The EFF made Zuma’s appearances in Parliament — to deliver the state of the nation address and answer parliamentary questions — a nightmare. Together with other opposition parties, they forced the ANC to oust Zuma in February. With him out of the way, the EFF lobbed the motion to expropriate land without compensation into the ANC’s lap.
It needs to proactively counter the offensive narrative that SA’s blacks are different from their peers in the rest of the continent, that is, they lack affinity to the land; that centuries of dispossession have made bygones be bygones; that they want jobs and money and not land
Stuck with a similar resolution, adopted at its national conference in December with no supporting plan, the ANC was forced to vote with the EFF in passing the motion to explore the expropriation of land without compensation beyond the scope envisaged in the current wording of the Constitution.
This has placed the EFF in a precarious position, as it has to show whether it has grown in political maturity beyond the ANC Youth League and can operate at a sophisticated level, or whether it will use the land issue as a bargaining chip for an influential role within an ANC-led alliance ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Since the motion was passed, setting in motion a process that could lead to the first significant amendment of the Constitution since its adoption in 1996, the party’s sympathisers have been nervous about whether the red overalls have a credible plan.
For a start, the move by the EFF to join forces with the ANC to remove Athol Trollip as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay as punishment for the DA’s opposition to the land expropriation motion lacks strategic content and is an insult to the intelligence of EFF voters, who voted for a principled opposition, not a party of unprincipled opportunists — and, significantly, they didn’t vote for the ANC.
The test of the EFF’s character as a strategic party lies in events outside of Parliament; these have taken a life of their own with the party watching as bystanders. Since winning the parliamentary vote on expropriation, the party has done little to lead the discourse and manage expectations.
Reactionaries and apologists for the willing buyer, willing seller regime have, instead, moved in to fill the void. Though in the minority, they’re better organised and well-resourced, which means they also have the attention of South Africans and the international community.
In the land issue, they have found a new swartgevaar bogey man to undermine President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign to revive confidence in the economy. They’ve taken to social media to scare off investors by presenting, rather falsely, the proposed move to amend the Constitution as a done deal and one that will lead to chaotic, violent land-grabs Robert Mugabe-style.
Worse, opportunists are exploiting the homeless by making them relocate their shacks to unoccupied land. This is dangerous and could lead to violent clashes and deaths at the hands of ill-trained police officers. The ANC, which has no plan beyond its conference resolution, is condemning the illegal occupations and will most likely characterise them as a law and order issue.
As well as distancing itself from the illegal occupations, the EFF needs to roll out a credible plan to manage expectations that, unlike other parties, it has thought through and for which it has a plan.
It needs to proactively counter the offensive narrative that SA’s blacks are different from their peers in the rest of the continent, that is, they lack affinity to the land; that centuries of dispossession have made bygones be bygones; that they want jobs and money and not land; that property rights are in danger; and that the current expropriation provisions in the Constitution cannot be widened without undermining the rule of law.
Unfortunately, leading this conversation means Malema and his high command will have to get out of their comfort zone of broadcasting rhetoric on TV and at rallies and, instead, engage intelligently, as equals, with all people, especially those with whom they disagree, who are often supported by an army of experts.
That, of course, is if they’re serious about remaining relevant in a competitive political arena and don’t want an elite pact with the ANC.
• Dludlu, a former Sowetan editor, is founder of Orwell Advisory Services.
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