Economic Freedom Fighters
The Economic Freedom Fighters is a South African communist and black nationalist political party. It was founded by expelled former African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malema and his allies on 26 July 2013. Malema is president of the EFF, heading the Central Command Team, which serves as the central structure of the party. It is the fourth-largest party in the National Assembly.
The party contested elections for the first time in the 2014 South African general election, garnering 6.35% of the national vote and securing 25 seats in the National Assembly.
The party's primarily political position is that South Africa still has an economic system that benefits white people over black people and that significant reform based upon Marxist principles must be instituted. The party has been a notable advocate for Pan-Africanism.
Since its founding the EFF has been embroiled in several controversies in which it has been said to have used divisive, violent, and racist rhetoric. Malema has been sued for hate speech several times and been found guilty twice. The party has been implicated in multiple corruption scandals. It has been described as violent. According to a judge in the South African Equality court, Malema has "called for racists to be killed". Malema has been convicted on a gun charge.
History
Foundation and early history
At a 26 July 2013 press briefing in Soweto, Malema announced that the new party had over 1000 members, double the 500 required for registration with the Independent Electoral Commission. The EFF is now registered with the IEC, after an objection to its registration by the Freedom Front Plus was dismissed in September 2013.In 2015, the EFF suspended MP Lucky Twala and expelled three MPs, Mpho Ramakatsa, Andile Mngxitama, and Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala. Mngxitama formed his own party, Black First Land First, while Litchfield-Tshabalala joined the United Democratic Movement. Malema has been accused by former members of purging his critics to consolidate his power. He acknowledged this criticism in a press conference and said the party should have expelled more ill-disciplined members.
Recent actions and activities
On 6 August 2015, the EFF announced it had secured a Constitutional Court case for its "#PayBackTheMoney" campaign against Jacob Zuma. The case was heard on 9 February 2016. Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng found that Zuma had violated the Constitution of South Africa, along with the Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete. Zuma was given 60 days to fulfill the requirements of the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela.On 27 February 2018, the EFF tabled a motion in the National Assembly to amend the Constitution so as to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation. The motion, brought by Malema, was adopted with a vote of 241 in support and 83 against. The only parties to oppose it were the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Congress of the People and the ACDP. Land expropriation is one of the EFF's seven cardinal pillars.
In 2018, the party's student wing, the EFF Student Command, came in first at several Student Representative Council elections, defeating the African National Congress -aligned South African Students Congress at the Durban University of Technology, the University of Zululand and Mangosuthu University of Technology. It also won in Cape Town, the District Six, Mowbray and Bellville Cape Peninsula University of Technology campuses with landslide victories. It also won the University of Cape Town. Peter Keetse, president of the EFFSC, said the win was a warning for what would happen in the 2019 national general elections. He said the youth were the influencers of the future: "this is an indication of what is to follow".
In March 2023, the party attempted to organise a national shutdown in protest of loadshedding and called for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to step down. The shutdown was widely reported as ineffective and involved a number of instances of fake news spread by party supporters.
In June 2024, the EFF refused to join the ANC-led Government of National Unity, because of the Democratic Alliance and Freedom Front Plus participation in the coalition.
In August 2024, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu left the party and joined former president Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe party.
Ideology and policies
Marxist ideology
According to its constitution, the EFF "subscribes to the Marxist-Leninist and Fanonian schools of thought on its analysis of the State, imperialism, class and race contradictions in every society." The EFF says it takes inspiration from Burkinabé President Thomas Sankara in both style and ideology. Prominent EFF member Jackie Shandu declared the party a "proudly Sankarist formation".The party’s Seven Cardinal Pillars were first articulated in its Founding Manifesto and remain central to the party's political agenda and included in its constitution. They are:
1. Expropriation of Land Without Compensation: The EFF advocates for land expropriation without compensation, arguing that land was stolen during colonial and Apartheid eras. The party proposes that all land should be under state custodianship and that land should be redistributed equitably. It says the South African government's willing-buyer-willing-seller principle should be abolished. This position has significantly influenced South Africa's land reform debate since Malema's time in the African National Congress Youth League, where the policy was first adopted.
2. Nationalization of Mines, Banks, and Strategic Sectors: The EFF calls for state ownership of the country's mines, banks and other strategic economic sectors. The party argues this will break white economic dominance and ensure national wealth benefits for all South Africans.
3. Building State and Government Capacity: This pillar emphasizes strengthening state institutions, developing government service delivery capacity and creating a developmental state model.
4. Free Quality Education, Healthcare, and Essential Services: Key demands include the fully subsidized education from basic to tertiary level, the implementation of National Health Insurance and free basic services. The EFF has been instrumental in student protests like FeesMustFall.
5. Massive Protected Industrial Development: The party advocates for local industrialization, trade protectionism and job creation through state-led industrial policy
6. Development of the African Economy: This pillar promotes Pan-African economic integration, resistance to neocolonial economic practices and African economic self-sufficiency
7. Open, Accountable, and Corruption-Free Government: The EFF demands government transparency, strong anti-corruption measures and accountability for public officials.
Death penalty
At the launch of the EFF in 2013, Malema called for a referendum on reintroducing the death penalty, but by 2019 he had reversed this position.Economics
The party promised to tackle corruption, provide quality social housing, and provide free primary healthcare and education for all, as well as proposing to expropriate white-owned farmland, nationalise the mining and banking sectors, double welfare grants and the minimum wage, and end the proposed toll system for highways. It has criticised both the dominant African National Congress and the primary opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, for enacting policies that it claims have sold out the black people of South Africa to capitalism as cheap labour. But after the 2016 local elections in South Africa, Malema suggested that the EFF would back the Democratic Alliance in hung-metro areas, while reiterating that it would not form a coalition with any political party.The EFF has vocally criticised black business owners, particularly in South Africa's mining sector. In a 2015 address at the Oxford Union, Malema spoke out against mining company owner Patrice Motsepe. During further protests in 2015, the EFF delivered demands that included the socialisation of the mining sector and called for more explicit targets for the 26% BEE ownership required by law. The EFF is a vocal proponent of expanding the role of South African state-owned enterprises in the national economy. In a public address at Marikana in the Rustenburg area, near the site of the Marikana massacre, Malema blamed mining companies for poverty in the region and called out platinum mining company Lonmin in particular.
The EFF was the only parliamentary party that opposed the 2018 political party funding bill, a funding transparency law that requires political parties to publish their sources of funding.
Foreign policy
Within Africa
The EFF presents itself as a Pan-Africanist party and supports the proposal for a United States of Africa. It has praised former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, promising to implement many of the policies in South Africa that Gaddafi implemented in Libya. The party is against presence of the American military bases in Africa, most notably in Botswana.The party supports Western Sahara independence from Morocco.
The EFF has strongly criticised the government of Eswatini, one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, advocating for democratic reforms in the country and the removal of borders between it and South Africa. The party has supported several efforts at change in Eswatini, ranging from trying to shut down the Eswatini-South Africa border with protest action to criticizing the electoral process in the country.
The EFF is critical of France's presence in Africa; in 2022 it picketed and ultimately barricaded the country's embassy in Pretoria. The French ambassador to South Africa criticised the EFF for scapegoating France as the source of all Africa's problems. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth the EFF announced that it would not mourn her death, instead saying, "she never once acknowledged the atrocities her family inflicted on native people that Britain invaded across the world."