Malema called out for all the times he got it so badly wrong

EFF leader Julius Malema has sometimes been described as something of a political prophet, especially on those occasions when he appears to have the inside track on ANC politics.

He has made numerous allegations about politicians over the years, with some of it bordering on tabloid sensationalism, such as in 2017 when he accused the then water and sanitation minister Nomvula Mokonyane of being in a romantic relationship with younger man Luvo Makasi of the Central Energy Fund. No hard evidence of this was ever produced.

He also accused the ANC Youth League’s Reggie Nkabinde of money laundering with Mokonyane and that his record label Mabala Noise was using its ill-gotten gains to pay artists astronomical signing fees, which Nkabinde strongly denied. Malema had also implied in 2016 that there might have been something sexual going on between Nkabinde and Mokonyane, as well as former soccer player Jimmy Tau.

Despite his hit-and-miss record, many of Malema’s followers continue to see him as an oracle with unusual political insight.

However, columnist and Malema critic Tom Eaton and others have been collecting some of the political statements Malema has made that he has had to either back down from or do an about-turn on which have emerged over time as bad or discredited causes.

Eaton pointed out:

• Malema was once willing to kill for Zuma;
• that he and his cohorts in the then ANC Youth League had sung the praises of Venezuala as a successful example of nationalisation (it is now in complete economic and social meltdown);
• that the EFF were strongly in favour of the now largely discredited public protector (who the EFF later admitted it was a mistake to back);
• that Malema very confidently predicted Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma would defeat Cyril Ramaphosa in the ANC elections; and
• that Malema and the rest of the ANC leadership had not so long ago vociferously defended VBS Mutual Bank, which has now been exposed as a disaster that is costing taxpayers and municipalities hundreds of millions of rands, with numerous stories emerging of fraud and theft facilitated through the bank.

The EFF is yet to make clear what it’s position on VBS is now, when earlier this year they maintained the black-owned bank was being “victimised” for having given a R7.8 million loan to then president Jacob Zuma. VBS was placed under curatorship by the Reserve Bank in March, which the EFF claimed was “undermining” VBS and undermining “black people’s participation in the ownership and control of financial services institutions”.

Others have responded with lists of their own.

However, one of Malema’s supporters told Eaton there was nothing he could say that would dissuade him and other black people from supporting their icon.