The Economic Freedom Fighters sound like modern-day superheroes

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — They sound like a strange band of superheroes: the “Economic Freedom Fighters.” They look the part, too, wearing red uniforms bearing the logo of a fist clutching a spear.

Faster than a speeding bullet, the EFF have gone from being South Africa’s newest political party to a serious thorn in the side of President Jacob Zuma and the behemoth African National Congress, the liberation party that has governed the country since the end of apartheid.

They have done it by speaking to disaffected and angry young voters — the kind of people fed up by the lack of change and opportunity under the ANC, more than two decades into democracy. And they have done it with the help of a young, vexing leader.

The 34-year-old provocateur Julius Malema, is a former ANC Youth League leader who was expelled from the party after falling out with President Zuma. After spending time in the political wilderness — specifically, growing tomatoes and cabbages on a farm in Limpopo province — Malema returned to lead the upstart EFF to 6 percent of the vote in last year’s general election.

EFF members wear their trademark red outfits in parliament — maid’s uniforms and worker’s coveralls, signaling the leftist party’s solidarity with the working class. Their outfits are topped with red miners’ hard hats and Che Guevara-style berets (the latter became a must-have fashion accessary last year, with a run on berets).

Eusebius McKaiser, a political analyst, calls it “the politics of spectacle.”

But Malema has long had a knack for outspoken statements and media savvy tactics that have kept the country riveted. He isn’t known by the typical title of party leader — instead, he goes by the more revolutionary sounding “commander in chief.”

“We formed the EFF because we love South Africa,” Malema said during a recent briefing in Johannesburg. He says the EFF wants to stop the country from “going down the drain,” adding: “We are moving at a high speed into dictatorship.”

The EFF’s primary attack against Zuma since being elected to parliament has been the more than $20 million in public money spent on upgrades to Zuma’s private rural home in Nkandla, his village in KwaZulu-Natal province.

The party has become known for a simple slogan, demanding that the president “pay back the money.”

After several incidents in parliament, with Malema and other party members shouting down the president, the EFF ended up in fisticuffs with plainclothes police and security officers, and were dragged out of the National Assembly after interrupting Zuma’s State of the Nation address in February.

 

Members of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party (in red) are forcibly removed from Parliament during President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address this evening. #SONA15

A video posted by Erin Conway-Smith (@erinconwaysmith) on Feb 12, 2015 at 10:46am PST

“Nkandla is the epitome of corruption, it’s the face of corruption,” Malema said. “If you don’t know what corruption looks like you just go to Nkandla.”

Malema, the son of a domestic worker, has had a turbulent young career in politics. He grew up in Limpopo — one of the country’s poorest provinces — before getting involved with an ANC-related group at just 9 years-old.

An earlier GlobalPost profile of Malema, from 2010, describes him as “the enfant terrible of South African politics, a young man known for his big mouth, controversial opinions and important friends, but lampooned by the country’s editorial cartoonists as being dressed in diapers.”

At that time Malema was best known for his flashy lifestyle, including his $34,000 Breitling wristwatch, two expensive homes and Mercedes-Benz. All this despite earning only a small official monthly salary.

He was a key ally of President Zuma — it was the support of Malema and the ANC’s youth wing that led to Zuma being made leader of his party. Zuma declared that Malema would be president one day; Malema said he would “kill for Zuma.”

But that was then and this is now. The pair has long since fallen out in dramatic fashion.

Three years ago, Malema was expelled from the ANC after being found guilty of “sowing divisions” in the party and “bringing the ANC into disrepute.”

He has since faced problems with the taxman — his fancy Johannesburg home, along with other assets, were auctioned off to pay a massive overdue tax bill. Malema is still facing counts of fraud, corruption, racketeering and money laundering related to dodgy construction contracts, with the trial due to begin in August.

“I’m the only one who has been saying to them, please trial me now. I want to have my day in court,” Malema says in his defense. “Remember I am public enemy number one. If the state had a water-tight case against me they would have trialed me yesterday.”

Despite this recent history, Malema at the helm of the EFF has been able to recast himself as a champion of South Africa’s poor.

A key pledge of the party — which describes itself as a “radical and militant economic emancipation movement” — has been to nationalize mines and expropriate land without compensation.

The next big test for the EFF will be in municipal elections next year. They are, at least, winning the spotlight already.

“The EFF is for the people. It’s speaking directly to the people,” said Musa Novela, 28, a chemical analyst, while marching in support of the EFF in Johannesburg last year. “The ANC, they have failed miserably.”

Malema says that, “for a new party we are doing well,” noting that the EFF has already built up widespread recognition in particular among young people.

“If you go to black areas and ask young ones what political parties they know — they will not tell you, they will just start singing: ‘Pay back the money!’”