The EFF has cemented its place as an influential player in local politics, emerging as a kingmaker in its first contest in municipal elections. Not only does the EFF have the power to decide who governs crucial metro municipalities such as Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay, but it has also forced other cities such as Rustenburg in North West and Thabazimbi in Limpopo to end up with hung councils after it obtained 26% and 22% of the votes there respectively.The party has made a good showing in Limpopo's biggest municipality, Polokwane, where it dislodged the DA as the official opposition in the local council.The EFF won the local ward of its leader, Julius Malema, in his home town of Seshego."We've got a mandate from our own ward, I don't know about the others," said Malema as he mocked ANC president Jacob Zuma, who lost his home-town ward of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal to the IFP after queuing up to vote with ordinary citizens on election day.story_article_left1The gesture was interpreted as a last-minute attempt to charm Nkandla voters.The EFF has increased its national support from 6% in the 2014 general election to 8% in these elections, emerging among the top three parties in seven of the nine provinces.But it is still struggling to make inroads in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.The DA remained the dominant party in the Western Cape while the ANC and the IFP continued to make a strong showing in KwaZulu-Natal.Godrich Gardee, the secretary-general of the EFF, said party members were emboldened by the results and were planning for more growth ahead of the national elections in 2019."We have humbled the big elephant that has been so arrogant. It's do-able [again in] 2019," Gardee said."It bears testimony that no political party is bigger than the voters and we just have to do more work as the EFF to ensure the humbling of the ANC and that it gets a devastating blow in 2019," he said.But the EFF failed to win the municipalities it had targeted such as Rustenburg and Polokwane. In Polokwane the party ate into ANC support, reducing it from more than 80% in 2011 to 57%.Political analyst Ralph Mathekga said the challenge facing the EFF was how it planned to retain the support of the frustrated and unemployed youth."What they need to do is to be able to retain the vote from one election to another. The current crises at local government level are such that parties can easily get the disgruntled voters," Mathekga said."The biggest risk the EFF is facing is this issue of coalition; what criteria are they going to use?"The leaders of the EFF can find themselves in big trouble if they make wrong decisions that amount to a betrayal of voters. The type of people who vote for them are difficult to retain [because] they are an angry constituency," he said...