South Africa: Zuma the Perfect Big Fish for Malema

GovernmentZA / Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)
President Jacob Zuma at a Department of Correctional Services ceremony (file photo)
18 August 2023
Scrolla (Johannesburg)
By Zukile Majova

For months now, Julius Malema has been talking about attracting big and influential figures to his party but so far this has not happened. Zukile Majova argues that Zuma is the missing figure in the EFF.

Julius Malema's EFF has attracted over two million voters, in less than 10 years, but its biggest fish that has yet to be reeled in is Jacob Zuma.

The Fighters recently tried to recruit expelled ANC secretary Ace Magashule to join the red army.

Magashule was expected to be one of the big names that would join the party before its 10th birthday celebrations at FNB Stadium.

In June, Malema seemed convinced that Magashule would submit his membership form in a matter of days.

"I am talking to him, we are talking and we're at an advanced stage of discussions. Politics are politics of numbers, it's very important that you talk to everyone.

"So I am talking to the man and when I say I'm talking to the man, I'm saying the EFF is in an advanced engagement with Ace Magashule," Malema told the Sunday Times.

Juju has been saying the party is "talking to a lot of very senior people" but he has been ignoring Msholozi; the one big fish that could convince the rest to join him.

Now that Zuma has been released from serving his jail term at Estcourt Prison, thanks to President Cyril Ramaphosa, he is available to play a meaningful role in politics ahead of the 2024 elections.

The current ANC doesn't want him. The Ramaphosa faction has been purging or prosecuting Zuma loyalists in a clear plot to get rid of the so-called RET faction in the ANC.

Desperate to be relevant, Zuma recently allowed himself to be elected KZN chairperson of a faction of the moribund SA National Civic Organisation.

Zuma and his family have been flirting with Malema for over a year now with some Fighters suggesting Zuma should join the party and be its premier candidate for KwaZulu-Natal.

Nxamalala remains very popular in his home province where people looted shopping malls in protest to his arrest in July 2021.

Being a proud polygamist, Zuma is also a darling of Zulu traditionalists in KZN and the rest of the country.

Across the country, Zuma is seen as an uneducated common man who came from humble beginnings in Nkandla but rose to the very top of governance in South Africa.

With Zuma leading its election campaigns, the EFF which won 10.8% of the vote in 2019, would be a major player in the 2024 elections.

Read the original article on Scrolla.

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