Still An Inconvenient Youth

Julius Malema, South Africa’s eminent new socialist, was sworn in as a member of parliament on 21 May 2014, days after his political party – the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – secured more than one million votes in its first elections and secured 25 seats in the national assembly. It marked a new chapter in Malema’s political career but it was also a crude awakening for the Cape Town parliament: the portly rebel and his EFF colleagues marched into the chamber wearing bright red workers’ overalls and their signature red berets as they promised to take the interests of the poor to the floor of parliament. Populism in drag or simply Malema at his best? It is perhaps still too early to say.

Love him or loathe him, Malema is undeniably one of the most controversial politicians of modern-day South Africa, if not a radical product of more than 100 years of struggle politics.

Following on from the success of the bestselling An Inconvenient Youth, this revised edition traces Malema’s life, from his early, poverty-stricken years in Limpopo to his political awakenings in the ANC, the party he called home until he was ousted in 2012. It charts the early days of the EFF and looks at the young men and women leaders who helped secure the party its first votes in 2014.

What does it all mean for South Africa? Does the EFF have the staying power that is needed? Or is it simply a front for the dubious Malema ‘brand’? Still an Inconvenient Youth: Julius Malema carries on unpacks the rabble-rouser’s new socialist revolution.