Effective propaganda requires at least a degree of credibility. But nowhere in his lengthy harangue does Julius Malema provide any indication of how the EFF would provide better governance of KZN (The Mercury, December 7).

Cataloguing the failings of the ANC in KZN – from social exclusion and factional battles to housing, crime and unemployment – may project impressive sound bytes but is hardly a recommendation to vote EFF.  But where Malema’s attempt to garner votes fails is on the EFF’s own record.

He claims “only the EFF is able to govern this province without violence” because “the EFF is the only organisation brave enough to call out thugs for what they are.” But here the Commander-in-Chief seems to suffer from amnesia.

In its March 15, 2023 edition the Financial Mail branded the EFF as “South Africa’s most thuggish political party.” It did so after reminding us that it was the EFF that vandalised 37 Clicks stores over a racist advert for a hair product. It was EFF thugs who forced their way into three restaurants in the Mall of Africa in Johannesburg in order to “inspect” how many foreigners were being employed.

Then having proclaimed a “national shut-down” for March 20 this year, Malema promised any shop or store that failed to observe his instruction would be looted. The violent side of the EFF cannot be concealed. It is thuggish behaviour that has banned Malema and certain of his comrades from attending the SONA event next year.

In the second paragraph of his rant, he makes it clear he is “committed to revolution” because “power belongs to the people.” That same slogan got the communists into power in Russia which produced 73 years of Orwellian subjugation of the masses by an elite.

Of course, airbrushed out of Malema’s vision of  KZN’s future is his promise to “slaughter the whites” at some distant point. In all likelihood that prospect would also include KZN’s substantial Indian population.

The naked truth of Malema’s EFF is on show in Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea and needs no elaboration. It’s called dystopia.