ANALYSIS
Genuine growth or smoke & mirrors? EFF’s electoral performance may define SA’s future
One of the most important questions on which South Africa’s political future will hinge is whether the EFF will gain more votes in this year’s national and provincial elections than in 2019. The result will decide what role the EFF could play in national or provincial governments, with an accompanying crucial impact on governance and policy. Still, assessing its likely share of the vote several months before the polls may be very difficult, without accurate, publicly available polling data.
In public, supporters of the EFF have expressed optimism about their party’s growth.
From time to time, their leaders will welcome new members to the party while hosting large public meetings where many people wear red.
One of the most important events last year was Julius Malema’s triumphant speech in front of a full FNB Stadium, when the EFF’s 10th anniversary climaxed with him being raised above the crowd on a crane (and dropping his mic).
Malema celebrates EFF’s 10th anniversary with lots of promises and a vow to unseat the ANC in 2024
Only the ANC has been able to fill a large stadium in this way and it has recently found that difficult. By way of contrast, a bid by the Patriotic Alliance to fill the Orlando Stadium several weeks after the EFF event was an abject failure.
Also, several prominent people have recently donned the red overalls.
Mzwanele Manyi is sworn in as a Member of Parliament on 7 June 2023. (Photo: Zwelethemba Kostile /GCIS)
Busisiwe Mkhwebane is sworn in as a Member of Parliament on 20 October 2023. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)
They include Mzwanele Manyi, the former spokesperson of the former leader of the ANC (and the current campaigner for the new “uMkhonto Wesizwe” party), Jacob Zuma. For the first time, a former Public Protector has taken an active political role, with Busisiwe Mkhwebane joining Manyi as an MP for the EFF in the National Assembly.
Just before the Christmas break, in what was probably a last-gasp attempt to feed his addiction to media attention, the liar and fraud Carl Niehaus publicly joined the EFF too.
EFF leader Julius Malema (left), former ANC NEC member Carl Niehaus (centre) and Mzwanele Manyi during the national shutdown protest in Pretoria on 20 March 2023. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)
The EFF is also clearly playing a bigger role in councils around the country.
In metros like Joburg, and particularly in Ekurhuleni, EFF members play a key role in making decisions.
The past eighteen months have seen a huge amount of speculation that the EFF could form a coalition with the ANC, should the ANC fall below 50% in next year’s polls.
All of this could give the impression that the EFF enjoys more political power than it has ever had.
There are also some reasons to believe that this power can only grow, along with its share of the vote.
The living conditions of millions of people around the country have deteriorated dramatically over the past five years. In particular, youth unemployment appears to be higher now than it has ever been.
South Africa’s racialised inequality has seemingly only increased over time, leading to huge anger among ordinary South Africans.
However, some of the party’s apparent progress may also come with a cost which could limit its future growth – there are also signs of the EFF possibly losing momentum, along with the likelihood of some of the recent actions and decisions by Malema damaging the party in the longer term.
For example, while it is true that the EFF did fill the FNB Stadium, it required months of preparation and hard work. Each of the party’s 1,170 public representatives had to spend their own money to fill a bus, or buses.
Party leader Julius Malema during the Economic Freedom Fighters’ 10th anniversary celebration at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 29 July 2023. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)
When 210 of them failed to do this, they all lost their positions as a result. This must have created chaos in some structures of the party – a problem that was exacerbated by Malema’s public humiliation of some of these people.
All of this for a single afternoon of spectacle.
Then, while it is true that the EFF has a bigger role in governance than it has ever had before, the potential for scandal has also increased.
The party’s Gauteng leader, Ekurhuleni Finance MMC Nkululeko Dunga, was involved in a car accident last year, in which he was hurt. It then turned out that the luxury car in which he was travelling was owned by a company that had contracts with the metro.
This does not mean the EFF is different from other parties in this regard. In recent times an ANC MP has been charged with murdering his wife, while a DA councillor has been accused of killing his family. But it shows how the potential for scandal, and the volume of it, grows with increasing roles in governance.
Also, while people like Niehaus, Mkhwebane and Manyi are joining the party, none has brought any constituency. It is not clear what they bring to the party at all. It simply shows that some people may go to the EFF as the political home of last resort.
The fact that both Manyi and Mkhwebane have been promoted to important salaried positions in Parliament means they must have jumped over people who had belonged to the party for longer.
At the same time, as has been noted many many times, the EFF is still dependent on its current leader, Malema, and his deputy, Floyd Shivambu. Neither has ever faced any leadership challenge, and Malema himself has indicated he would never allow someone to challenge him for the leadership of the party.
VBS Theft, Money Laundering & Life’s Little Luxuries: Julius Malema’s time of spending dangerously
This suggests that while the EFF may be able to grow its membership, it is not able to grow people. In other words, people who join the EFF must be content to occupy a position only at the pleasure of Malema and those close to him.
It also suggests that those who would like to join the EFF must be content to know there is a ceiling on their ambitions, and that if they are seen to fail, they could, and likely would, be publicly humiliated.
This particular approach by Malema may turn out to place a ceiling on his own ambitions. It seems impossible to see how he could attain the highest office in the land without a movement behind him involving people who themselves are growing into leadership positions.
It is also unlikely that he will attract quality people to the EFF if they believe they could never be its leader one day.
In the meantime, the real aim of the EFF may well be to force the ANC to work with it in some kind of formal or informal coalition.
This means that Malema both needs to work to reduce the number of votes that the ANC gets, but must also ensure that his campaign does not make it impossible for him to work with the ANC after the polls.
At the same time, it does appear that the mood in the ANC is moving against working with the EFF.
There has been consistent reporting, first in Daily Maverick but also in other publications, that the ANC national executive committee will formally end its working relationships with the EFF at the end of January.
And, as has been pointed out previously, the decision on working with the EFF could well split the ANC almost down the middle.
Some in the party, such as Gauteng leader and Premier Panyaza Lesufi, have shown they will do anything to stay in power. Others, such as President Cyril Ramaphosa, are likely to be much less keen.
What is clear is that it is still difficult to know how much momentum the EFF really has, and whether it can translate some of its presumed progress into a much larger share of the vote. Which makes the incoming elections potentially even more dangerous. DM
Become an Insider
Nothing good can come out of EFF gaining more support. I can understand the desire to unseat the ANC, but the EFF must be kept far away from government. We have all seen their modus operandi – violence, anarchy, racism, corruption, arrogance. The day the EFF is the majority party would a sad day for South Africa. Everybody knows that.
I doubt if everybody knows that, as what 10% of RSA’s people are voting for them. Surely 10% of South Africans doesn’t desire to see a failed state. That said, in my opinion, the crucial fact in the brilliant article above is that ending the coalition will split the ANC. If Malema can manage to split the ANC in 2 – then it is what 27 27 of the 54%. The 27% that will remain – let us call it the Ramaphosa camp will have all incentive to form a coalition government with those not in the ANC anymore. On that side of the spectrum it is enough to get a sane competent government with say Andre de Ruyter as Minister of Minerals and Energy, Adrian Gore as advisor to the Minister of Health etc.
Adrian Gore only knows how to make money, and not health. Andre de Ruiter is a thinker, worker and disciplinarian and principled, he is a good fit for planning and execution of how to get SA out of failed state situation
I agree about Andre de Reuiter
Hope you are not producing a blend of reuters news with ruiters ?
Indeed, Sangamon, you are correct…
If you live in a rural or platteland town, like Kroonstad or Steynrus in the FS, since 2018, I have not seen a single proposal the EFF has offered the citizens of Moqhaka…. or Metsimaholo aka Sasolburg….????
Latest projections point to a decline in the FS support for the EFF, and I suggest that 13 – 15% is maximum in this year’s 2024 elections…
I was in a shebeen in a township a while back, and a huge argument ensued, about what to vote, or for whom…
ANC & EFF out, DA, FF+ & Areta in, go figure….
I have yet to meet a person from the township that says anything near the positive things you suggest about EFF/malema. They’re on a drive in KZN, and are paying people to attend their manifesto launch rally, but I have yet to come across any who are making the trip from the midland hub. One wonders where they they get their money cos according to required disclosures they have none.
Malema is a fascist dictator in the making – all the signs are there!!
Tragic manipulation of undereducated people.
Its is exactly like North Korea and he will stay in power forever
If the NPA would have done its work, both Malema and Shivambu would be behind bars for fraught; end of EFF.
*fraud
Thanks. Unfortunately DM does not permit corrections after completing the post.
Considering the conditions in the country for the masses it is amazing that they do not have a larger state of the vote. Get land free, higher grants, what’s not to like. And they should be the obvious Alternative for those sick of the ANC. I believe Malema is the problen and not an asset. It seems the masses are not keen on his violence and don’t trust him.
ANC and EFF coalition to govern after the elections. Julius will insist on the vice presidency. Then something happens to the president, and Julius becomes the president of the country. QED.
Seen before in Germany 1933.
Agree with the general drift of the article, but while it is common cause that the EFF and ANC as a party and some of their members indulge in corruption and theft of public funds on a grand scale, Grootes seems to feel the need to tar the DA with the same brush by pointing out that members of the ANC and DA have both committed the common law and reprehensible crime of murder.
EFF will lose votes
Not really saying anything more that is already known. Surely the MK must have some effect on the success of the EFF?
The ANC is well advised to avoid any coalition with the EFF. Malema would stomp the lily-livered Ramaphosa into the ground within no time at all. He and Shivambu would then simply take over the reins of rampant corruption from the ANC and commence a program of anarchic racism and lawless destruction of everything from the farming community to the industrial and economic backbones of South Africa. Zimbabwe would be a tea party in comparison.
It doesn’t matter who wins the so-called elections.
ALL of these clowns are the same: Corrupt, incompetent, unskilled, lazy, and to top it all, just plain STUPID.
I believe there is a positive correlation between poor education in a country and the support for populous political parties. The problem arises when they form a government as global markets punish them, their economies collapse, and election promises never materialise. Venezuela, despite its oil reserves is a classic case which Julius Malema lauded.
There are two solutions, neither of which are likely to happen in the near future in SA.
1 Greatly improve education;
2 introduce a voter competency test before one is able to register to vote. (Like a driver’s license)
Either, or a combination of these, would result in better political leadership in SA – but that is a dream 😀
We can never hope to improve education whilst SADTU holds the country to ransom. The SADTU teachers are mostly undereducated (at best), bone idle, and downright useless. Shame! Poor kids, who can look forward to a ‘nothing’ future. They will not only be unemployed, but UNEMPLOYABLE !
Finally! Someone who sees the central role that SADTU has played, and continues to play, in the devastation of basic education in SA. With a recent upswing in the number of articles about basic education published by DM, I have made this same point numerous times but to no apparent avail. One of DM’s sharper investigative writers should examine this question in some depth—unless doing so is impeded by fear of reprisals from SADTU, which is entirely likely, given the general cognitively deficient and supercilious nature of SADTU’s members.
Politicians want to keep people dumb. Look at Trump and the Republican Party as an example. Pandering to the support of those on the left of the IQ curve!
It really doesn’t matter who “wins” the so-called election. They’re all corrupt, incompetent, lazy, unskilled and, to top it all, just palin stupid.
Not virtue signalling here but folks seem to be utterly oblivious of the true nature of the country they live in. The EFF’s Student Command now holds the majority of elected university as well as TVET stundent councils. Those kids couldn’t possibly be labeled as “un educated” “brain washed” or some other reductionist deregatory epithet we habitually ascribe to the “masses” to explain away their voting choices. The hard truth is that there is seething social anger in SA that has very little to do with the ANC. There is a real scenario in which the EFF could be considered to the best thing that happend to SA in the last decade.
There has been a radical disposition in the population for sometime;very angry people itching for a fight. Most of those people have found a political home with the EFF through which they vent against the “system” but within the confines of the law in a broader political order governed by law and therefore accountable. Without such a political home in which to vest their interests for”radical change” they may very well be doing something a lot less palatable. Whatever your view of Malema’s brand of politics, the EFF has inadvertently extended South Africa’s honeymoon and bought everyone more time to sought things out. There were 2,455 recorded “service” delivery protests through out SA in 2022. Those grievances will not disappear because of “clean government” or some political arrangement post elections!!!
Almost all of that seething anger has *everything* to do with the ANC, specifically its unrelenting torrent of horrendous failures at whatever it touches! And that anger spans SA’s entire political and social spectrum.
It is sad and infuriating that no matter what is uncovered about Malema and other EFF leaders , they remain untouchable . Hats off to Pauli van Wyk and her tenacity and quest for what is right.
There is a tendancy by the media to be waxy lyrical and almost mesmerised and fearful of the EFF and there bulling tactics, sadly the same approach is lacking with the media approach to the DA and others that generally respect the rule of law and dont spue hate !!
You mean the media (like DM) don’t become handmaidens (also sometimes called presstitutes – (by none other than Juju and his ilk) of a particular party ? Its is called ‘independence’ ! NOT … as in Independent Newspapers !
IOL…LOL
This party was never about people, but securing a place at feeding trough. If people choose them, they must suffer the consequence. Sadly, democracy has an inherent flaw, as whoever lies the best wins…. That being said, it is (kinda) the best we have right now.
That is why it is called a ‘liberal’ democracy ! Or … until it loses loses its ‘liberalness’ under a Juju ! What is evident is that any gain in EFF support will be at the expense of the ANC … so the question of how the current gormless ANC will respond to this loss … is a moot point.
Slow news day, huh? A lot of oft-repeated facts, supposition and speculation. Essentially this article says nothing new, and then ends with the obligatory fearmongering and dire warnings (usually nice and vague for causing maximum fear in your reading audience) which modern media appears to require. Dangerous elections? On what basis?
We’ve seen in the City of Johannesburg how the king maker in a coalition can gain power far beyond what it’s actual support would warrant.
With the ANC losing support, and with no other party nor the Alliance looking likely to get a majority, kingmakers will be able to strike a very good bargain for themselves.
The EFF know they won’t win the election. They don’t care.
Unfortunately as long as low income people continue suffering, EFF vote will keep increasing with each election. EFF is the only party that has been growing at more than 50% rate every 5 years, and whether it’s leadership will destroy the country when in power or not, the majority suffering blacks will for now regard it as a better alternative to ANC.