Defamatory Falsehoods Spread by ANC

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes with serious concern the public remarks made by the Secretary-General of the African National Congress (ANC), Fikile Mbalula, in which he falsely alleges that the EFF participated in anti-immigrant vigilantism by going door-to-door demanding that foreign nationals leave South Africa.

The EFF has never organised, endorsed or participated in door-to-door campaigns to intimidate, threaten or forcibly remove foreign nationals from their homes. Such conduct is fundamentally inconsistent with the EFF’s long-standing Pan-Africanist principles and our commitment to the unity of the African continent. We reject xenophobia in all its forms and have consistently maintained that the failures of the South African state cannot be blamed on poor African migrants seeking survival, but on corruption, unemployment, inequality, state incapacity and the deliberate collapse of public institutions under ANC rule.

Mbalula’s contradictions expose the political opportunism that now characterises the ANC. In the same public engagement where he correctly warns against vigilantism and acknowledges that no one should take the law into their own hands, he recklessly fabricates a story that the EFF was allegedly moving from door to door intimidating foreign nationals and demanding that they leave South Africa. If vigilantism is unlawful and dangerous, as Mbalula himself concedes, then falsely accusing a political organisation of engaging in such conduct is equally irresponsible. Such reckless falsehoods endanger our members, poison public discourse, and seek to criminalise an organisation that has consistently rejected xenophobia while advocating for the proper enforcement of South Africa’s laws.

Equally dishonest is Mbalula’s attempt to blame the EFF for igniting anti-immigrant mobilisation by referring to the EFF’s 2022 parliamentary oversight visits to restaurants and businesses. Those oversight visits, led by the President of the EFF, Julius Malema, were conducted in the exercise of Parliament’s constitutional oversight responsibilities. Their purpose was to assess compliance with South Africa’s labour legislation, including whether employers were adhering to employment laws, ending the exploitation of undocumented labour, and ensuring that both South African and foreign workers were employed under lawful and fair conditions.

To now characterise legitimate parliamentary oversight as the spark that ignited anti- immigrant protests is shameless political revisionism. Mbalula cannot erase the historical reality that outbreaks of xenophobic violence and organised anti-immigrant mobilisation have plagued South Africa since at least 2007, culminating in the horrific attacks of 2008, years before the EFF was even formed. To suggest that the EFF ignited a phenomenon that predates the existence of the organisation is a fabrication so absurd that it insults the intelligence of the South African public.

These lies are also an attempt to absolve the ANC of its own historic responsibility. It is the ANC that has governed South Africa for over three decades while allowing immigration systems to collapse, border management to deteriorate, labour laws to be selectively enforced, and public confidence in the state’s ability to uphold the rule of law to disintegrate. It is under ANC rule that vigilante formations have emerged and operated openly because the state abandoned its constitutional responsibilities. Instead of confronting this undeniable record, Mbalula has chosen to manufacture an enemy in the EFF. We refuse to allow the ANC to rewrite history or to criminalise our constitutional work through manufactured propaganda.

The EFF promotes environmental justice and sustainable development.

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