Five years in, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) reports growth and stability and on Saturday hosts their biggest rally yet.
Commander-in-chief Julius Malema speaks to Daily Dispatch politics reporter Simthandile Ford about the party’s five-year journey and shares his views on the Eastern Cape.
It has been five years in the political space. How has the journey been?
It has been an exciting journey. When I think of where we started, when nobody wanted to associate with us.
We were taboo. We had no funds for anything, we had serious financial challenges at a time we had to contest elections – in a few months. I was reminded of that time when I did door-to-door [visits]. People reminded us that we came to East London and invited them to the stadium but never came to fetch them. There was no money.
We had to negotiate with a few taxi drivers to transport people and promised to pay after elections. Some agreed, some did not. Look, these are just the memories we are reminded of that hold very special places in our hearts.
The EFF has been labelled as radical leftists [and] have emerged as electoral kingmakers in major cities including Pretoria and Johannesburg. How do you see this growth?
The EFF is growing nationally as evidenced by the recent Ipsos. We are projecting a 7% overall win – that makes us happy, because we are not decreasing instead, we are increasing...