Bloemfontein -
EFF leader Julius Malema has called on the party’s members “to stop theorising” and implement the organisation’s revolutionary programme by invading vacant land and taking over the mines.
Malema said the banks would also be the targets of the EFF’s revolution, saying the financial institutions must brace themselves for rolling mass protests.
He said this was part of the EFF’s seven cardinal points of radical transformation of the economy.
Buoyed by his overwhelming election as EFF president, Malema said the party was the only organisation that had changed the South African political landscape with its socialist policies.
“We are going to occupy the unoccupied land… The story of land has been with us for a very long time. All of us must continue with this revolutionary programme,” Malema said, delivering his closing speech at the EFF’s inaugural elective conference (national assembly) in Bloemfontein yesterday.
He said his party would establish a solidarity fund to bail out people who get arrested for occupying land. He added that the party would seek international support to fast-track its land invasion policy.
Malema recently applauded residents of Nellmapius in Pretoria after they occupied a piece of vacant land that they then named Malemaville in his honour.
He suggested he would set an example by occupying empty land in his home township of Seshego in Polokwane.
“Stop theorising, there must be a programme. The revolution is now. Theory without practice is useless,” Malema thundered, also urging EFF members to take over the mines, starting with those owned by ANC leaders Cyril Ramaphosa and Baleka Mbete and those belonging to billionaire businessman Patrice Motsepe.
“Every time you are burning tyres, but you have never occupied the mines. All the mines owned by Patrice Motsepe must be blocked, followed by those owned by Cyril Ramaphosa. And so (must) the Gold Fields (mines) owned in Gauteng by Baleka Mbete. They must be occupied.”
Later, during a media briefing, Malema said the ANC leaders were being “targeted for assaults because they were the faces of exploitation in the mines.”
A relaxed Malema looked unfazed by Monday’s chaotic events that marred the EFF conference, when unruly members from Gauteng occasionally disrupted the nomination process and stormed out of the hall in protest against alleged unfair lobbying.
Malema implored EFF members to prepare themselves to be in government and act like true leaders, because the party was ready to take over the government from the ANC, especially in the big metros.
“What we know is that the ANC will not be in power in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Joburg and Nelson Mandela Bay. Those who come from these regions, they must start acting like leaders. You must behave like mayors and councillors so that you are ready to take over the government of South Africa. We must be ready to take over some municipalities and the government in an impressive way. We postponed it in May (during the national elections), but we think we are fine now (to take over).
Malema described the four-day national assembly as a “perfect conference”. He had a message to his detractors who suggested that the EFF would suffer the same fate as other splinter parties that imploded after breaking away from the ANC.
“We are a living organisation. Comrades, those who still see us as coming from the ANC, you are outdated. That is our previous life! We are born again. We are bringing a new organisation that all of you will be proud of.”
Without naming the ANC or opposition parties, Malema blamed the unruly behaviour on an “enemy agent”.
- The Star