The game is on

THE EFF is going to prove a couple of things tomorrow. It has been very vocal and it has had some landmark court victories, particularly taking the Nkandla matter to the Constitutional Court, where its ruling almost precipitated a crisis of governance.

But tomorrow offers it its biggest challenge – perhaps not in the minutiae of what its manifesto holds, most of which everybody already knows, but in the basic mechanics of filling a stadium as large as Orlando.

The battle of the stadiums has become a fascinating vignette in the lead-up to the municipal elections.

The ANC was embarrassed in the Nelson Mandela metropole when no amount of spin could disguise the reality that erstwhile legions of supporters had stayed away.

The DA opted for a far smaller stadium in the south of Johannesburg for its launch last Saturday, and was then accused of Wonderbra activities for using swathes of blue material to create a perception of support.

On Wednesday, the government went to Giyani in Limpopo to perhaps an even smaller stadium, which was then filled to overflowing, but was just as quickly accused of hijacking what was a national day for party political ends.

We are living in undoubtedly one of the most interesting – and terrifying – times in our post-democratic era, but often we are told that it is more exciting and more terrifying than it actually is.

Proof of that is the “sustained clamour” of the anti-Zuma lobby, but that amassed only a few hundred protesters on Freedom Day in three different centres as it agitated for the president’s recall from office.

That notwithstanding, Julius Malema, the EFF’s self-styled commander -in-chief who managed to dominate headlines this week with his call to arms, faces the greatest test yet of his braggadocio.

Come tomorrow night, his lieutenants will either be spinning for everything they’re worth or Malema will be justified standing atop the ramparts of Orlando Stadium.