MATHATHA TSEDU | Malema shoots his own party in the foot

What does the trial of EFF leader Sello Malema mean for him, for the party and for the country?

It is a layered question with layered answers. Having started in Seshego, where he famously stood as a lone protester during a national Congress of South African Students (Cosas) class boycott in the 1980s, he went on to lead Cosas and later the ANC Youth League.

Many will remember how he kicked a BBC journalist out of an ANCYL media conference at “the revolutionary” Luthuli House in 2010, calling him a “bastard” among other things after he asked Malema about his home in Sandton.

Two years later he was expelled from the party for insubordination. There has always been a level of recklessness about Malema. When, after the 2007 conference, the ANC leadership secretly decided to recall Thabo Mbeki as president, it was Malema who went public, saying Mbeki wouldn’t last a week.

When the EFF landed in parliament, it made its presence felt through a disruptive strategy that saw daily scuffles with security personnel because Malema, leading the charge, didn’t think parliamentary rules were made for the EFF.

Only a few weeks ago, while speaking in parliament, he disclosed that national police commissioner Fannie Masemola was about to be charged; and days later he was. It is this level of bravado, of wanting to live in a world where he makes the rules as he goes along and is not bound by societal norms, that saw him grab that semi-automatic rifle eight years ago in East London, as it was still known, and fire it in the air — because he could.

He seemed to think there would be no repercussions. And indeed, for a while there weren’t, until AfriForum decided to lay charges. The rest, as they say, is history.

Accusations of racism against the magistrate and of plots by the right-wing AfriForum to bring him down, regardless of their merits, were irrelevant

That history includes him standing in court and doing politics instead of testifying to refute the charges. One of his legal counsels, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, arguing for leave to appeal on Thursday, said the state had responded to only one issue out of nearly 10 the defence had raised.

He said the absence of rebuttals to the other issues meant they stood unopposed. He should have given that advice to Malema during his own testimony. He should have told him that accusations of racism against the magistrate and of plots by the right-wing AfriForum to bring him down, regardless of their merit, were irrelevant; what he needed to do was challenge the actual charges against him.

For him, the courtroom was just another political soapbox — instead of replying to the charges, he chose to address the crowd outside and those watching on TV. Even after he was sentenced, and then granted leave to appeal, he immediately made outbursts from the courthouse steps that continued the line of “no retreat, no surrender”.

Refusing to retreat or to surrender doesn’t have to be uncouth. It can be done with finesse, in a way that persuades the many young people who look up to him that firing guns in public is not on. Malema seems unable to realise the need to show leadership and steer the thousands of youths who follow him in a direction that respects societal norms.

In a violent society such as ours, Malema should show leadership. What the trial also revealed was how the EFF is really about him. The elaborate plans that were ready to implement on Thursday if the magistrate denied his application for leave to appeal included motorbikes to whisk the legal team to a waiting helicopter, which would speed them to the high court in Makhanda to continue the battle.

Another legal team waited in Johannesburg to run to the Constitutional Court in the event that the Makhanda court ruling was unfavourable.

All because Malema wasn’t supposed to spend a night in jail. As it turned out, the elaborate plans were unnecessary. But they made the point that Malema is not just the EFF leader, he is the EFF, and all stops had to be pulled out to save him and thereby save the party.

Which only kicks the can down the road. When the appeal process has run its full course, and jail time is still the verdict, what happens then? Is this the EFF apocalypse postponed? With everything so centred around Malema, will deputy Godrich Gardee be able to hold the ship together if and when that moment comes?

The EFF has made many errors in its short lifespan, but also many positive contributions to the body politic and language of our political discourse. It would be a pity if it were dealt a body blow because its leader refuses to grow up.