The EFF, for the first time since its inception, is more popular than its firebrand president, Julius Malema.
This was revealed by Malema, who said he was happy that the party now had an image of its own not mirroring him.
Malema was engaging the media at Constitutional Hill in Braamfontein for the launch of the party’s countdown to its 10th anniversary bash at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on July 29.
“Research we conducted internally by Ipsos announced that the EFF is now more popular than Malema, which is what we have all been fighting for — that the party must have its own identity beyond the individual,” said the leader of the red berets.
“We have gone beyond the point where Malema is the person carrying the EFF to where it is. The EFF is carrying Malema and the rest of the members and that is good news for us. Today, the organisation has assumed a life of its own.”
The party was established in 2013 after Malema was expelled from the ANC the previous year.
It contested its first elections in 2014, where just more than a million voters gave it the nod for the National Assembly and provincial legislatures across the country.
Their introduction to parliament would be a game-changer that saw the ratings of Parliament TV skyrocket to new records owing to their unorthodox style of opposing incumbent heads of state, from former president Jacob Zuma to his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa.
In the 2016 local government elections, the EFF became kingmaker in the country’s main metros and they chose the DA over the ANC, which had governed since the dawn of democracy in South Africa.
The party also placed the big elephant in the room — the land question — firmly on the agenda of the country’s permanent political discourse.
Malema said they will be hosting a series of events ahead of the big one on July 29.
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