How the EFF has evolved over the last four years

The Economic Freedom Fighters will celebrate its fourth birthday at Durban’s Curries Fountain stadium in KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday, where leader Julius Malema is expected to address thousands of people.

The party’s fourth year in existence has seen it score some of its most significant victories, but it has also been the most testing year for the organisation, as it disbanded two of its provincial structures and faced dissent from within its own ranks.

When the EFF stormed on to the political landscape four years ago, it instantly became the third-largest political party and focused attention on Parliament and provincial legislatures with its fiery rhetoric and dramatic walk-out antics. Charismatic party leader Julius Malema has gained notoriety and respect across the world, positioning the EFF as an alternative to the left of the ANC. It also made significant strides in last year’s municipal elections.

But, since its third birthday, the EFF has disbanded its KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape structures, parted ways with founding treasurer general Magdalene Moonsamy and, for the first time, disciplined deployees who ignored national leaders’ instructions by voting with the ANC in local councils and metros.

One of its most challenging tasks has been explaining to its members the national decision to vote with the Democratic Alliance in hung councils after the local government elections, secretary general Godrich Gardee told the Mail & Guardian.

“I can’t say it was an easy decision to make and that it didn’t have its challenges. But it was discussed with party members to reach an understanding,” Gardee said.

In coalition councils in the Johannesburg and Tshwane metros, the EFF has emerged as the power that controls the viability of the coalition led by the DA, even as its own members struggle to reconcile voting with a party that the EFF considers its ideological opposite.

Although the party’s leadership felt the move was worth it as part of its quest to decrease the ANC’s dominance, gaining the understanding of members in lower structures has proven to be a challenge.

The party is currently taking disciplinary action against six councillors in the Mogale City municipality, on Gauteng’s West Rand, who voted with the ANC to pass its municipal budget after the ANC secured a dramatic overthrow of the DA-led municipality in June. The EFF leadership had hoped that the ANC budget would not be passed.

“EFF councillors were directed not to walk into the chamber and give the ANC a quorum. But they decided to walk in,” Gardee said. “They must face consequences and probably they will decide to resign en masse.”

The party’s co-operation with the DA was also the main reason for Moonsamy’s departure. Only a few weeks after announcing she had left the party, Moonsamy addressed an ANC branch in Johannesburg. She was once ANC Youth League treasurer under Malema’s presidency.

Asked to comment on the EFF’s organisational integrity as it celebrates its fourth birthday, Moonsamy responded: “Well wishes to the EFF and its masses, for it is the masses who will ultimately lead the EFF into the future of our developing democracy.”

The EFF was launched in 2013 as a political party at the site of the Marikana massacre in the North West province, where police shot and killed 34 striking mineworkers.

In 2014, the party’s North West secretary Papiki Babuile was convicted of conspiring to kill an ANC councillor in the province. In February, he was acquitted and welcomed back into the party. EFF North West chairperson Betty Daile said, since Babuile’s return, membership has increased by 30 000 in the province.

“We continue to draw members, particularly since the secretary of the province has been back from prison, [and] the administration and efficiency [of the regions and branches] has improved. He’s made a huge impact,” Daile said.

According to Gardee, the North West, with Gauteng and Limpopo, are the EFF’s three strongest provinces. KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Western Cape have been identified as its weakest points. Gardee said the EFF’s policies were still not resonating with voters in some areas.

“People are still struggling to give us the benefit of the doubt. And we are an organisation that is self-financing because our ideological outlook and economic policies that we espouse are not sounding so well in the ears of those who have money,” Gardee said.

The Red Berets have also continued their destabilisation of the power relations between ANC-allied students’ congress Sasco, DA youth wing Daso and Pan Africanist Congress student wing Pasma, on tertiary campuses.

In 2015, the EFF Student Command won student representative council (SRC) elections in Limpopo and the Vaal University of Technology. In May, the EFF staged one of the biggest upsets in student politics in post-apartheid South Africa when it won control of the SRC at the University of Cape Town. Critics claim this happened because the DA did not contest the vote.

Gardee said, although the party recognised the growing role of the student movement, it would not put pressure on itself to grow the youth wing at a faster rate than it could sustain.

“Structurally it means you must have offices, cars, printing material and their budget will be equal to that of the mother body. So, if the mother body is going through financial constraints within itself, what sense will it make to add more structures?”

As an organisation that administers its structures through democratic centralism, the EFF’s so-called war council and command team are its centres of power. Decisions taken here are binding on lower structures. This has consolidated the power of the party’s national leaders but upset officials elected to lower structures.

In KwaZulu-Natal, former EFF official Nhlanhla Mthembu and a handful of other members did not challenge the national leadership publicly after the EFF’s failure to capitalise on ANC infighting in the province ahead of the 2016 local government elections.

Mthembu blamed deputy president Floyd Shivambu and the central command team deployee to the province, Marshall Dlamini, for the party’s poor showing in the polls in KwaZulu-Natal, claiming election money never reached them.

But this was dismissed by the “war council”, prompting Mthembu and others to establish the Effective Economic Emancipation movement.

An EFF insider in the province this week told the M&G that the problems were worsened by national party leaders imposing decisions and appointments on them without understanding local context and without using the knowledge of members on the ground.

“When the EFF disbanded regions, they brought someone from Johannesburg to Ethekwini who didn’t understand the area. The person [was] authoritative and was shutting people down. The organisation is not functioning and they are using a top-down approach. There is so much political potential that the EFF can exploit here, but it’s not working because the centre won’t come together,” the insider said.

Since its founding congress in Bloemfontein in 2014, the EFF has fractured three times. The first and most significant fracture came when founding EFF member Andile Mngxitama decided to form his own political party, Black First Land First (BLF), after a falling-out with the commander-in-chief.

Only a year after its formation, the BLF is now largely seen as a mouthpiece of the Guptas, with its leaders and events allegedly bankrolled by the scandal-embroiled family.

The second, less notable, fracture happened in 2015 when another founding member of the party, Mpho Ramakatsa, launched his Save the Soul of Africa organisation. Ramakatsa has yet to get the project off the ground.

Despite this, the EFF remains immensely popular among the youth and, increasingly, among South Africans tired of corruption.

Formally, the EFF has no alliance partners. But in a short space of time it has won support from leftist organisations such as the PAC, the Workers and Socialist Party (Wasp) and the Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters.

Earlier this year, the EFF suggested it may be willing to work with the new South African Federation of Trade Unions at its founding congress. Its ranks also include members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union.

Over the past four years, the organisation’s structures have emerged on the frontline of social campaigns against racism, gender violence and corruption in local communities and on a national scale.

But it retains its “posture” as a home of the country’s youth, said political analyst Ralph Mathekga.

“It does have the signature of a youth party, even in their attitude of radicalism and also not playing by the rules in many areas in Parliament. They have done that very well,” he told the M&G.

Mathekga warned, however, that without compromise the EFF’s radicalism would not be sustainable.

“It’s one thing to actually question the system; the problem is that their solutions seem to be difficult to achieve, because they are not interested in a consensus. It’s either their way or the highway. At some point, you need to bargain,” he added.