By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has once again pledged to build low-cost government housing in the Afrikaans-only town of Orania in the Northern Cape.
Addressing supporters at a Birthday celebration rally in Kimberley, Northern Cape, on Saturday Malema said the party had plans for the town when it takes over SA.
The anniversary follows the party’s first ever electoral decline in the May general polls.
It also comes as the party is preparing for its third People’s Assembly, an elective conference where members will vote for a new leadership.
“Orania belongs to us. When we take over the Northern Cape and South Africa, we will build RDP houses in Orania and send our people to go stay there.
“Northern Cape is our land. It belongs to us. No one will sell the Northern Cape, not to the Boer or the colonisers. The Northern Cape will be returned to the hands of Africans.”
Malema had previously said that “EDP houses in Orania” were part of his party’s conditions for joining the government of national unity (GNU). It also demanded the DA and Freedom Front Plus (FF+) be excluded from the coalition.
Malema said Zamani Saul was “breathing through the wind” and said EFF supporters had shown the premier that he was not in full control of the province.
“We said when we were formed 11 years ago we said the ANC would die a natural death. That death we are witnessing today.”
He also predicted the collapse of the GNU claiming the ANC had sold out the people of South Africa.
“Comrades, we are going to fight the GNU. The GNU is the enemy of our people. Ramaphosa is the enemy of our people. The ANC sold out the people of South Africa. That is why this GNU must fall.
“We must fight it everywhere. We must reject the GNU, ANC and DA.”
The EFF’s ability to capture the country’s imagination for the past decade has been well documented, but it now finds itself on the periphery of the country’s current politics.
Deputy President Floyd Shivambu on Friday said a campaign to delegitimise his party was to blame for the party’s poor election results this year.
The EFF’s support dropped in the 2024 national and provincial elections. This was largely attributed to the rise of MK Party, which took voters from the EFF, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
Shivambu, however, told students at Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley that there was another reason for the EFF’s failure to grow its support. He said there was a campaign by “white capitalists” to “delegitimise” his party ahead of the elections.
“In the 2024 elections, and prior to that, the white capitalist establishment invested a lot of resources to delegitimise the Economic Freedom Fighters through social media, through mainstream media, and through everything else that they do.
“We were not adequately prepared to counter an ideological political onslaught against the organisation,” he said.
Meanwhile Shivambu faces a strong challenge from party’s secretary general Marshall Dlamini for the deputy president position.