Although it seems highly unlikely that the EFF deputy president will become finance minister, South Africa would take a financial knock if he did.

In typical EFF fashion, politician Julius Malema made the controversial statement recently that the EFF would only consider a coalition with the ANC after the elections if EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu is appointed finance minister.

In a country where the former president is now standing for election despite numerous charges of corruption and even a reduced jail sentence, little seems impossible any more. Remember, there was once a time when it seemed unthinkable that someone heavily implicated in the arms deal and then accused of rape could become president. But this is South Africa, and stranger things have happened.

DA leader John Steenhuisen did not mince his words at the recent launch of his party's Western Cape manifesto in Paarl, in the Drakenstein Municipality.

"If you still had any doubt that the doomsday coalition is a clear and present threat to our future, all doubt was removed... when Julius Malema confirmed that the EFF will give its vote to the ANC, subject to one condition: that the ANC make the EFF's Floyd Shivambu minister of finance," he said.

Steenhuisen said the "doomsday coalition" that he first warned about in April 2023 from the floor of the DA's Federal Congress,...