Julius Malema

Campaign promises

Malema, clad in the EFF’s signature red overalls and beret, made many promises from free land, water and electricity for the poor to flushing toilets in all homes as he campaigned ahead of municipal elections in August.

“We want black communities to be like white communities,” he told the enthusiastic crowd.

The ANC, which has ruled since its iconic leader Nelson Mandela took power in 1994, showed in 2014 national elections that it still had overwhelming support.

However, it has been hard hit by a series of scandals involving President Jacob Zuma and some commentators predict it could lose a couple of major municipalities in the upcoming vote.

The EFF was founded 2013 by Malema after he was thrown out as the leader of the ANC’s youth wing.

In national elections less than a year later it won more than a million votes, taking 25 seats in parliament and becoming the third largest party behind the centrist Democratic Alliance, which holds 89 seats.

This will be the first time the EFF has contested local elections, where issues such as housing, service delivery, poverty and unemployment rank high on voters’ lists of complaints.

Cape Town (AFP) – South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) has brought a case of treason against opposition leader Julius Malema after he threatened a violent overthrow of the government, the party’s spokesman said Monday.

The move follows an interview Malema gave to Al-Jazeera television Sunday in which he said that if the government used violence to suppress protest “we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun”.

ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa announced on Twitter that the party had gone to police to lay a charge of treason against Malema, leader of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

“The ANC has just opened a case of high treason against EFF and its leader Julius Malema in his personal capacity with Hillbrow police station,” Kodwa confirmed to News24.

Earlier, the ANC released a statement saying Malema’s remarks “are a call to violence, inflammatory, treasonable and seditious”.

In the interview, Malema said: “We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through a barrel of a gun”.

The EFF has been demanding the ouster of President Jacob Zuma for several months, accusing him of corruption.

EFF deputies regularly disrupt parliamentary sessions, sometimes shouting anti-Zuma slogans.

Last year, EFF MPs were expelled from the assembly by security guards after fights broke out.

“We are a very peaceful organisation, we fight our battles through peaceful means, through the courts, through parliament, through mass mobilisation, we do that peacefully,” Malema told Al-Jazeera.

“But at times the government has attempted to respond to such with violence, they beat us up in parliament… They sent soldiers to places like Alexandra (township) where people are protesting.”

The EFF leader, 35, was expelled from the ruling ANC in 2012 when he was head of the party’s youth wing.

He founded the radical leftist EFF a year later which entered parliament with 25 deputies after May 2014 elections, becoming the third largest party.

1067c214a6c6c28ff0c9e54dde61098f — Malema is the commander-in-chief of the Economic Freedom Fighters, an opposition party he founded in 2013 after being expelled from the ANC, where he had served as president of the Youth League.

South African politician Julius Malema says the opposition “will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun” if the ruling African National Congress (ANC) continues to respond violently to peaceful protests.

Malema is the commander-in-chief of the Economic Freedom Fighters, an opposition party he founded in 2013 after being expelled from the ANC, where he had served as president of the Youth League.

The exchange, in Sunday’s episode of Talk To Al Jazeera, began when Jonah Hull asked Malema how far he was willing to go in his “war” against President Jacob Zuma and reminded him of his 2014 threat to make the entire Gauteng province ungovernable.

“We have the capability to mobilise our people and fight physically,” said Malema.

“That’s not befitting of a government in waiting, is it?” Hull asked.

“We know for a fact that Gauteng ANC rigged elections here,” replied Malema.

“We know for a fact that they lost Johannesburg and they lost Gauteng. But we still accepted it. But they must know that we are not going to do that this year. We are not going to accept.

“Part of the revolutionary duty is to fight and we are not ashamed if the need arises for us to take up arms and fight. We will fight. This regime must respond peacefully to our demands and must respond constitutionally to our demands.

“And if they are going to respond violently – like they did in the township of Alexandra, just outside Johannesburg, when people said these results do not reflect the outcome of our votes, they sent the army to go and intimidate our people. We are not going to stand back. Zuma is not going to use the army to intimidate us. We are not scared of the army. We are not scared to fight. We will fight.”

Hull asked Malema to clarify this: “When you say you are willing to take up arms, that’s what you mean?”

“Literally,” Malema said.

“Against the government?” Hull asked.

“Yeah, literally. I mean it literally. We are not scared. We are not going to have a government that disrespects us,” Malema said

“We are a very peaceful organisation and we fight our battles through peaceful means, through the courts, through parliament, through mass moblisation.

“We do that peacefully. But at times, government gets tempted to respond to such with violence. They beat us up in parliament and they send soliders to places like Alexandra where people are protesting. We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun.”

Earlier, Malema had denied that Zuma was his primary concern.

“We are not waged in a war against Zuma and the ANC. We are waging a war against white monopoly capital. Zuma is not our enemy. The ANC is not our enemy. They are standing in our way to crushing white monopoly capital, which has stolen our land, which controls the wealth of our country. “As we are in the process of crushing the white monopoly capital, there will be some of those irritations that we have to deal with. Zuma represents such an irritation; the ANC represents such an irritation.”

South Africa is holding municipal elections in August.

South Africa’s Julius Malema warns Zuma government

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