The ruling party should hear the EFF’s message but strongly reject its tactics, says Max du Preez.
It is not alarmist to state that the middle ground in South Africa is coming under increasing threat. If that threat reaches a tipping point, instability and economic decline will follow.
We can change some parts of our constitution but we cannot afford a widespread public disregard for the rule of law, of the sovereignty of Parliament and of the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution.
Then things will indeed fall apart and the centre will most certainly not hold.
In hindsight, this threat has been with us for some time. Workers on strike, angry township protesters, xenophobic vigilantes, kangaroo courts and proliferating gangster groups have been taking the law into their own hands for some time now.
Wanton destruction of state and private property, the killing of opponents and the shooting of police resulted, with almost no legal consequences.
Rampant state corruption and theft, blatant nepotism, self-enrichment and the manipulation of the criminal justice system are equally dangerous threats. We see daily reports of that continuing unabated.
We have to thank the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) for highlighting these dangers in recent months in such a way that we’re sitting up and noticing the real nature and imminence of the threat.
The EFF’s militant demands and popularity indicated that there are a significant number of people out there who want to break the system, despite the consequences. The typical EFF supporter, it seems to me, is not an unemployed squatter camp inhabitant, but people with jobs, middle-class people and even professionals.
I say they want to break the system, because that is exactly what the EFF’s policies would achieve if implemented: racial retribution; the demise of commercial agriculture; a disastrous decline in foreign investment; and a state-run economy.
The threat of violence always lurks under the surface of Julius Malema and Co’s rhetoric and they don’t hesitate to act violently either. They don’t say the Israeli ambassador should be kicked out, they say if he doesn’t leave they will physically remove him themselves. They don’t ask followers to stop paying their SABC television licences, they ask them to rock up to the SABC in numbers and burn their licences. When the Speaker in the Gauteng Legislature declares their red overalls inappropriate, they don’t take the matter on review or to a court of law, they break down the doors and occupy the place.
The militia-like culture of the EFF is embedded in their whole approach. They have a commander-in-chief, fighters and commissars. Malema is often surrounded by men in battle camouflage at rallies.
The EFF’s tactics were emulated by the Congress of South African Students, traditionally an ANC-aligned body, last week when thousands protested in Johannesburg’s inner city. They threatened to make schools ungovernable and proceeded to loot the stalls of street hawkers and had to be dispersed by police.
The EFF doesn’t view Parliament and provincial legislatures as places where they were elected to so they could help shape legislation, but as sites of struggle where they ambush and threaten their opponents; forums where they shout their slogans to be broadcast to the public.
Malema declared last week that in the EFF’s two months in Parliament it had become the de facto opposition, despite the fact that the DA received 22 percent of the vote in the May election and the EFF only 6 percent. Judged by media coverage, this is true, despite the fact that the DA was doing all the work by asking questions to the executive.
The EFF would obviously not have gotten away with this if the governing ANC had proper leadership and clear direction. Stung by the EFF’s often-accurate depiction of its weaknesses, the ANC leadership simply resorts to calling the EFF names – fascists, Nazis, anarchists. These insults simply make the EFF grow stronger.
Let’s all hope the ANC continues to resist the impulse to use strong-arm tactics or dirty tricks against the EFF.
The ANC, the DA and other political parties, civil society and the business community should wake up to this growing tendency of extra-parliamentary politics, disregard for the results of a free and fair election and reckless populism.
Strengthening our democracy, promoting constitutionalism, delivering on the promises of our constitution and moving government and Parliament closer to the electorate are the only answer.
* Max du Preez is an author and columnist.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
Pretoria News