Julius Malema
Julius Sello Malema is a South African politician. He is the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a communist and black nationalist political party since 2013. Before the foundation of EFF, he served as a president of the African National Congress Youth League from 2008 until his expulsion from the party in 2012.
As a child, Malema joined the ANC and was a highly engaged member while growing up; he was ultimately elected president of its Youth League in April 2008 under controversial circumstances. While president, he was an early proponent of nationalising South Africa's mining industry and expropriating land without compensation. He rose to national prominence as an outspoken supporter of Jacob Zuma, then ANC president and later President of South Africa.
However, Malema's relationship with Zuma strained immensely following numerous disciplinary deliberations against him by the ANC; by 2012, he was campaigning for Zuma to be removed from office, ahead of the ANC's 53rd National Conference. In April of that year, months before the conference was due to take place, Malema was expelled from the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute. The following year, he founded the EFF, and was elected to the National Assembly in 2014, winning 25 seats in the assembly.
Malema has been embroiled in a variety of legal issues throughout his political career: he has been convicted of hate speech, in March 2010 for demeaning comments about Zuma's rape accuser. In 2012, Malema was charged with fraud, money laundering and racketeering. After numerous postponements, the case was dismissed by the courts in 2015 due to repeated delays by the National Prosecuting Authority.
In 2022, Malema gave a speech against a white man who attacked EFF party members. As a consequence of the speech, in 2025, Malema was convicted of hate speech for according to the court "calling for to be killed". Malema has applied for an appeal to a higher court.
On 1 October 2025, Malema was convicted of five offenses, including the illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, illegally firing a weapon in public, and reckless endangerment. The offences related to an EFF rally, at which Malema fired between 14 and 15 live rounds on a stage, in front of 20,000 EFF supporters. Malema will undergo pre-sentencing in January 2026, where he faces a minimum prison sentence of 15 years. Furthermore, as per the Constitution of South Africa, should he receive a sentence of 12 months or more, without the option of a fine, and fails to have the judgement overturned on appeal, Malema will be barred from serving as a Member of Parliament for five years.
Early life and education
Born on 3 March 1981, Malema was born and raised in the township of Seshego near Polokwane in the Transvaal, in the region now known as Limpopo. His family is Northern Sotho, and his mother was a domestic worker and a single parent. After his mother died, he was raised by his grandmother, who died in May 2019.Student politics
According to Malema, he joined the Masupatsela movement of the African National Congress at the age of nine or ten. His main task at the time was to remove National Party posters. He has claimed to have received military training at the age of 13 but this claim has been disputed for lack of corroborating witnesses. In 1995, Malema joined the ANC Youth League and became the chairperson of his local branch in Seshego and of the regional branch in broader Capricorn. In 1997, he became the provincial chairperson of the Congress of South African Students in Limpopo. He was elected as national president of COSAS in 2001.Education
Malema matriculated from Mohlakaneng High School in Seshego. In 2010, he completed a two-year diploma in youth development through the University of South Africa. Also at UNISA, he subsequently completed a Bachelor of Arts in communications and African languages in March 2016 an Honours degree in philosophy in 2017. In 2018, he enrolled in a master's degree programme at the University of the Witwatersrand.ANC Youth League
Election as president: April 2008
By 2008, Malema was the provincial secretary of the Limpopo branch of the ANC Youth League and a leading contender for election as president of the national league. His candidacy had the support of outgoing league president Fikile Mbalula, while outgoing league secretary-general Sihle Zikalala supported the more moderate candidate, Saki Mofokeng. Following an extremely heated campaign and a disorderly plenary, Malema was elected ANC Youth League president at the league's 23rd National Conference in Bloemfontein in April 2008. He received 1,833 votes against Mofokeng's 1,696 votes and was elected alongside a slate of allies, including Andile Lungisa as deputy president.The outcome of the vote was immediately disputed, including by conference delegates who claimed that incidents of intimidation had prevented them from voting. The conference devolved into disorder, with some delegates throwing chairs, and adjourned without concluding its business. Malema later criticised the "unbecoming conduct" shown by delegates at the conference. Following an intervention by the mainstream ANC, the league held a special closed congress in Johannesburg in June. On the recommendation of ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe, Mofokeng agreed to affirm the results of the election held in April.
Support for Zuma: 2008–2010
By the time of his election as Youth League president, Malema, like most of the league's membership, was a strong supporter of ANC president Jacob Zuma and an outspoken critic of former ANC president Thabo Mbeki. In June 2008, he defended Zuma – then facing prosecution on corruption charges – at a rally in Thaba 'Nchu, Free State, famously announcing, "We are prepared to die for Zuma... We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma". In September, he vowed to "eliminate any force" that sought to block Zuma from the national presidency.Ahead of the 2009 general election, Malema was nominated to stand for election as a Member of Parliament but declined on the grounds that Parliament was "for old people". Nonetheless, he campaigned energetically for the ANC and for Zuma, the party's presidential candidate, in the election. In April 2009, for example, he and the rest of a league delegation were asked to leave Port Elizabeth's Dora Nginza Hospital, where they had been canvassing support in the wards. After the election, Malema launched a programme of school visits in an apparent attempt to reach the country's youth. Kgalema Motlanthe, then the ANC deputy president and Deputy President of South Africa, criticised the visits as disruptive to the students' education.
Although Malema remained an ally of Zuma in the months after his election as President of South Africa in May 2009, they fell out publicly by mid-2010. Malema later explained that he had turned on Zuma when he realised Zuma was incapable of fulfilling the left-wing policy agenda that had secured his election as ANC president in 2007; according to Malema, Zuma took a harsher stance towards the league only after it rejected him. According to an alternative interpretation, however, Zuma adjusted his stance towards Malema and the league in 2010 – notably by instituting disciplinary proceedings against Malema – because he realised that Malema's outspoken militancy constituted a political liability for him or a political threat to him.
Disciplinary charges: 2010
Mounting controversy
By early 2010, Zuma faced significant pressure, both from the public and from inside the ANC, to curtail Malema's increasingly inflammatory conduct, and the Mail & Guardian reported that Zuma was concerned about being perceived as "a lame duck" with respect to the Youth League. In mid-March 2010, ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe told the media that henceforth ANC members would be punished if they engaged in public feuds with or attacks on one another. At the same time, the ANC National Executive Committee released a statement which objected to "the lack of respect which some of the leaders and structures of our movement have for the NEC's decisions", describing it as incompatible with "the ANC's historical mission, its discipline and its protocols". News24 said that both statements were clearly directed at Malema, who had "bad-mouthed almost everyone in the leadership of the governing alliance" and most recently had attacked Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in the media.Nonetheless, following this announcement, Malema was involved in a further series of especially well publicised controversies later in March and in early April. The first concerned Malema's singing the controversial struggle song "Dubul' ibhunu" in defiance of a high court ruling, as well as related remarks by Malema about the death of Eugène Terre'Blanche .
Second, from 2 to 5 April 2010, Malema led an ANC Youth League delegation on a controversial working visit to Zimbabwe. The league said that it aimed to use the trip to strengthen its relationship with the ZANU-PF Youth League, as well as to conduct a fact-finding mission on indigenisation. Malema met with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and other ZANU-PF politicians, and in public statements he was complimentary of ZANU-PF, comparing it favourably to Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change. His statements sparked fears in some quarters that the ANC would attempt to imitate ZANU-PF's Land reform in Zimbabwe programme; there were also concerns that Malema's partisan comments would undermine ongoing efforts by Zuma's government to broker a political settlement between ZANU-PF and the MDC. City Press reported that ANC officials had asked the Youth League to postpone its trip, though Malema told the media that Zuma had personally endorsed it.
In addition, on 8 April, Malema received international media attention for his conduct during an altercation with Jonah Fisher, a BBC journalist. At a media briefing about his visit to Zimbabwe, Malema mocked the MDC for having offices in affluent Sandton and became enraged when Fisher interjected to point out that Malema himself lived in Sandton. During the ensuing exchange, Malema called Fisher a "bastard", a "bloody agent", and a "small boy". The following day, Malema said that he was "not remorseful", describing Fisher as "disrespectful" and the United Kingdom as a country "whose media always undermine the credibility and integrity of African leaders". The ANC condemned his conduct in a statement.