Julius Malema has pitched the EFF as the true leftist alternative, promising a rebound from electoral losses by waging a two-front battle.
In a Business Day interview, the EFF leader said his movement would defend BEE and employment equity “in the courts and the streets” while outflanking the DA and the MK party.
After peaking at 10.8% of the national vote in 2019, the EFF slipped slightly in last year’s polls — a decline Malema attributed to the perception of the EFF as a protest-only force and not to a loss of appetite for radical reform.
He now promises a dual strategy: mounting legal challenges against the DA’s constitutional suits on BEE and employment equity, and proposing concrete industrial policy initiatives, particularly the beneficiation of mining and agriculture to drive industrialisation and job creation.
He dismissed suggestions that the EFF would join the government of national unity, arguing instead the DA and Freedom Front Plus were exploiting the coalition to “protect white privilege”.
“I don’t mind the government of national unity. I mind the DA and Freedom Front Plus using the GNU to protect white privilege,” he said, pointing to DA senior official Helen Zille’s public assertion that SA should be a two-party state comprising the ANC and DA.
Malema’s pledge to defend transformation laws comes as debate about them rages at home and internationally, with Elon Musk branding them “racist”.
The DA has filed appeals against BEE codes and employment equity, arguing race-based quotas breach the constitutional guarantee of equality. By vowing to oppose these challenges, the EFF is seeking to cast itself as the sole uncompromised bulwark of post-1994 reform.
Malema said the ANC had kept quiet while the DA led the national conversation against BEE and employment equity.
“The ANC is under threat, in terms of the party’s own survival and the party’s agenda to transform the SA economy. Usually in that situation, a party’s leaders would close ranks. But if [ANC secretary-general] Fikile Mbalula is allowed to keep doing what he is doing, there will be nothing left of the ANC,” Malema said.
Malema has also intensified his attack on the MK party, led by former president Jacob Zuma, labelling it “tribal” and accusing it of fragmenting the black vote.
“Zuma never speaks about white monopoly capital. MK does not speak [about] land or criticise the DA.
“MK are willing to join anyone who wants to destroy the country,” Malema said.
Additional reporting by Thando Maeko
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.