"Call me a flip-flopper but my politics have not changed," is how EFF leader Julius Malema responds to accusations that he changes his mind depending on which way the political wind is blowing.
He is adamant that he has always been firm in his convictions and reflected on experiences that shaped them.
"The politics I'm advancing now are the same politics I advanced when I was very young," he said.
"When you go look at my videos when I was in Cosas: the land, the free education and all types of things, I said those things when I was young. Those are my policies.
"No, don't tell me about current affairs. Those are my policies," he said this week in an interview ahead of the EFF's eighth anniversary tomorrow.
Malema has been criticised for positions he and the EFF have taken on a range of issues, from his "I will kill for Zuma" comments to calling for the fall of the former president, to having tea with him at his Nkandla homestead in February.
Malema went into detail about that five-hour tea with Zuma. He said he tried without luck to convince Zuma to comply with the Constitutional Court and testify at the Zondo commission.
He claims to have gone to Zuma in the interest of the country.
"I went to Zuma's house to ask Zuma to go and appear before Zondo commission because he's the one who taught us that this Constitutional Court is the highest and final arbiter, and all of us must always respect it.
"I said to him, 'President, I'm going to be president of this country one day, whether you like it or not. I don't want to inherit a dysfunctional government which has got no institutions of the state that are respectable. I'm pleading with you, please go to the commission,' " he said.
"I took it upon myself, despite the fact that I should be sitting in a corner and celebrating that karma is a bitch. It's his turn. I said, no, it's not about him. It's about my country."
Malema said that by going to Nkandla, he had gone against his grandmother Sarah's wishes. Before she died, she had told Malema: "You must never ever have anything to do with those people."
I said to him, 'President, I'm going to be president of this country one day, whether you like it or not. I don't want to inherit a dysfunctional government which has got no institutions of the state that are respectable. I'm pleading with you, please go to the commission
— Julius Malema on his meeting with Jacob Zuma
During the 100-minute interview this week with Malema, his broad personality traits - from humour to passion - were revealed.
He compared his trip to Nkandla to a boy propositioning a girl from whom he stands little chance of acceptance.
"I went to propose [sic] him [Zuma], he said no. Only sishumanes [a boy who does not have a girl] will not understand why I went. You want something, you go after it and that's what I did," he said.
While Malema insists that he does not support Zuma, and despite his attempts to get Zuma to comply with the courts, he still believes the former president should be left alone, or at most, should have been given house arrest for his contempt of court.
This view is in no way a change of heart, he claims, because "what do I gain from Zuma? Zuma's time is finished".
"We fought Zuma when he was powerful, not when he is now a helpless old man. We fought him when he had state power. When we fought him, they defended him," he said, becoming animated.
Malema said that if he had succeeded in convincing Zuma, the looting and destruction of property last week would not have happened.
"I was trying to avoid exactly what you guys are speaking about today by trying some diplomatic approach. I could have taken a platform, insulted him and called him all manner of things, like I did before. It was not going to give us any results. Did I win? No."
Why did you go even when you knew you are going to fail? "I went because I'm not sishumane. When I want a girl, I go to her, I propose. So I went. I approached Zuma and Zuma didn't humour me. He refused."
Malema blames the riots on the ANC's failure to lead. He also believes there is still nothing stopping a repeat of the chaos that took place in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng because the ANC has not addressed the issue.
"The ANC I grew up in would have said, 'president Zuma is found guilty and sentenced to jail.' The first thing they were going to develop is the speaking notes that say we must all have one message, many voices. Jessie Duarte used to like saying that in our meetings.
We fought Zuma when he was powerful, not when he is now a helpless old man. We fought him when he had state power. When we fought him, they defended him
— EFF leader Julius Malema
"Now there are many voices with different messages because the centre is not holding."
He said that in his time, the party would have deployed its national leaders across the country to explain the Constitutional Court judgment and its implications. It would also explain the ANC's attitude and how its activists, branches and sympathisers should react to the imprisonment of the former president because Zuma was not an ordinary person.
The party would have then called mass meetings, he said, to galvanise communities to respect the Constitutional Court decision.
"I can tell you, if they had done that, we wouldn't be where we are now, especially in KZN.
"Until today, they have not gone back to speak to the people where these things happened. They went to inspect malls, and those people can repeat what they did at any time because no-one has bothered to persuade them. No-one has bothered to talk to them and convince them, and talk them out of this mess."
Malema said he opposed the deployment of the army because soldiers were used to intimidate people, and leaders went to some communities only on the backs of soldiers.
"You are fooling yourself if you say everything has gone back to normal. Until the leadership goes to the ground and be shouted at, and be screamed at, and be insulted by the people ..."
And only after insulting the leadership, will people feel heard, he said.
"They will feel much better about themselves and when someone else comes to mobilise them, they will say, 'no, the president was here [in] eThekwini, we are not going to do that'."
The 40-year-old Malema has yet to be vaccinated, but is keen to get the jab.
While he has a preferred vaccine, he said it would be irresponsible not to be inoculated until that was available.
"Very soon I will vaccinate. I don't want to go into which vaccine I prefer. There are certain vaccines I prefer, but I don't want to say I will wait for it, because those who believe in me may as well say, let's stop and wait until they are available," he said.
"I will go and vaccinate. It's the right thing to do. It's science. These people have been injecting us from birth and if they wanted to kill us, they would have done that long time ago," he said.
The EFF recently protested at the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority for its alleged refusal to import Russian and Chinese vaccines.
This came after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the country had experienced challenges with the Johnson & Johnson vaccines and that more than 2-million doses made in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) had been passed on.
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