EFF aims to halt ANC growth in KwaZulu-Natal

EFF leader Julius Malema says his party will focus on KwaZuluNatal and the Eastern Cape ahead of the 2019 elections to reduce the ANC majority to below 50% of the vote.

Speaking during an hourlong exclusive interview with Ukhozi FM on Wednesday, Malema said his party had exceeded expectations since its formation four years ago.

Malema and other EFF leaders have been pounding Durban and other KwaZulu-Natal areas ahead of the party’s fourth birthday celebrations at Durban’s Curries Fountain stadium on Saturday. They have visited campuses, squatter camps and townships to ramp up support.

Malema urged supporters to join the party. Ten cows would be slaughtered in the stadium to mark these festivities.

He said the party chose KwaZulu-Natal for the celebration because of the potential for growth in the province. He said the EFF had received 1.8% and 2.3% votes in the 2014 and 2016 elections, respectively, but now wanted to do much better.

“The ANC has been growing in this province. We want to disrupt this growth by increasing our potential in KZN [KwaZuluNatal]. Our support in this province is not where we would like it to be,” Malema said.

“When we visited areas like Mawoti and others, we saw that poverty was not a theory. There you can touch poverty with your own hands. We have asked people to use the EFF to fight their battles.

“They talk about corruption they see. They see that people are hiring their girlfriends and the tenders go to their relatives. We will be raising some of the things they told us when we go to the National Assembly,” said the EFF leader.

He said that while his party was not in a coalition with the DA, it had decided to vote with the party to get rid of ANC corruption in municipalities.

“We saw that giving the ANC municipal funds would be like taking an ATM, a card and PIN and leaving it with Zuma in his bedroom. We know that all the money will disappear because the guy is extremely corrupt.

“We saw that the DA – while they are still committed to protecting white interest and white wealth — they are not thieves like the ANC and they will not loot municipal funds and they don’t have too much power. So we decided to vote with them. But it is not a carte blanche vote. We are constantly monitoring them,” he said.

Malema said his party wanted to do well in the 2019 elections and would consider coalitions thereafter.

“We will hold talks with the DA, but if they don’t agree with us on the question of expropriation, we will not go into a coalition with them.

“We will also talk to the ANC because by then Zuma … will no longer be there. If we agree with the ANC on the question of land, we can form a coalition with them,” he said.