EFF leader Julius Malema. Picture: RUSSELL ROBERTS
EFF leader Julius Malema. Picture: RUSSELL ROBERTS

ECONOMIC Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema has called on other opposition parties to unite with the EFF to break the grip of the ruling party at municipal polls this year.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) remains dominant and still likely to win, but enduring poverty 25 years after apartheid was ended in South Africa has eroded its support, especially among restive young people born after 1994.
Mr Malema, whose party seeks nationalisation of mines and land and the curbing of white economic power, said the weak economy had raised the possibility that the ANC could lose control of either or both the commercial hub Johannesburg or capital Pretoria at the ballot.
"South Africans must shoot warning shots now, through their votes," Mr Malema told Reuters in an interview.
"It is an opportunity now for South Africans to show the ANC that they are tired ... that the ANC should begin to take them seriously, ahead of the national elections in 2019."
SA’s economy is struggling. The World Bank has forecast growth to reach only 1.4% this year and unemployment stands at 25%. Even President Jacob Zuma has forecast a tough test from the opposition at the polls.
Mr Malema — who points to the JSE as a symbol of the capitalism and white power his party aims to dismantle — said the ANC was still relying on the memory of liberation hero and former president Nelson Mandela to woo votes.
Many older South Africans feel grateful to the ANC for winning their freedom, ensuring the party unbroken power for the past two decades. But surveys show most people reaching the voting age of 18 are not automatically joining the ANC.
"The only thing they know is liberation, so they want to tell people about Robben Island," he said, referring to the apartheid-era prison that remains inextricably linked with Mandela, its most famous inmate.
"To young people those things do not appeal," said the former leader of the ANC’s youth wing, who fell out with Mr Zuma, referring to the so-called "Born Free" generation that has no memory of white-minority rule.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told a press briefing that his party "is confident of retaining all metropolitan municipalities we currently govern and will be fighting to win the City of Cape Town", led by the Democratic Alliance (DA), which also leads the Western Cape provincial government.
Grand coalition
The EFF won 6% of the vote in the 2014 general election, while the DA made inroads with middle-class urban black voters despite a reputation as the party of white privilege, winning 22% of the vote. The ANC claimed 62%, down from 66% in 2009.
Despite its minority representation, Mr Malema’s party has caused waves in Parliament.
Security officials forcefully removed Mr Malema after he disrupted Mr Zuma’s annual address in February last year, an unprecedented sign of discontent with his administration.
Mr Malema was demanding to be allowed to ask Mr Zuma when he would repay part of a R246m state-funded security upgrade of his rural home Nkandla. Mr Zuma denies any wrongdoing.
The EFF leader said he backed the idea of a grand opposition coalition of smaller parties to take on the ANC.
"The ANC must be out of power in the local municipalities so they can begin self-correction…. We want to teach them that lesson through the coalition of the opposition," he said.
Reuters