Local elections: Has the EFF hit its growth ceiling?

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The lack of political interest within the core youth constituency of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) could have seen the party hit a growth ceiling after failing to increase its support substantially at this year’s local government elections. 

As of Tuesday evening, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) predicted that the EFF will get 10.6% of the national vote at this year’s elections, slightly up from 8.2% in 2016. At national and provincial elections in 2019, the EFF received 10.77% of the national vote. 

The eight-year-old organisation has struggled to get the positive sentiment it gets at  events, rallies and on social media to translate into actual voters at the polls, analysts have noted.

The Mail & Guardian recently reported that the EFF received lower negativity sentiment online, and fared better than the ANC and the Democratic Alliance on favourability rankings according to analysed data from online messaging and interactions.  

However, political analyst Professor Mcebisi Ndletyana from the University of Johannesburg said the party appealed to a limited constituency – largely disillusioned young people who were strangled by the albatross of unemployment. 

Statistics South Africa reported in August that more than 40% of young people between the ages of 15 and 34 were unemployed as of the second quarter of 2021.

Ndletyana said the populism, militancy and aggression of the EFF appealed to young people because it expressed their own bitterness and anger at the system. 

“But, at the same time, the youth is so angry at the system that they have lifted the middle finger at it. And part of that middle finger is not taking part in processes that legitimise the system. The very thing that appeals to the youth with the EFF, at the same time, limits the party. That is both the potency and limitation of populism,” Ndletyana contended. 

EFF treasurer general Omphile Maotwe rejected the notion that the organisation had plateaued in terms of electoral growth across the country, saying that, even with the low voter turnout, the party was excited about its expansion trajectory. 

“If we were to compare apples with apples; if the same turnout that came out in 2019 happened in 2021, you would actually see that there has been a huge growth of the EFF,” Maotwe told the M&G. 

She called for patience until the Electoral Commission of South Africa released the final results, which, she contended, would show that the EFF had registered substantial growth.

“We have been checking from a VD [voter district] level and the performance seems to be consistent, and we have actually increased our votes in each and every VD that has come through,” said Maotwe.

“So, we’re quite excited, we’re happy. I mean, the turnout was low – the ANC has dropped drastically [including] the DA, but the EFF has actually grown. It is a very good picture that we are seeing at the moment, and we are hoping that the picture will remain the same.”      

The CSIR’s predictions show that voter turnout will be about 48% this year, down drastically from the 58% turnout of 2016. 

Caution should be applied when analysing all parties at a national level because this year’s elections were more heavily centred on local issues rather than national politics, said Dr Sithembile Mbete, a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria’s political sciences department.

Mbete added that the EFF’s challenge was to get the people who attended its rallies, wore  its regalia and were vocal in its defence on social media to actually turn up at voting stations and cast their ballots for the party. 

“There is a lot of work that the party needs to do in terms of equipping its base to actually participate in the formal process of democracy. I use the specification of the formal process of democracy because its base participates informally – they protest, they do all sorts of things, but they are not participating in the formal processes,” Mbete said.

“There is some work that the EFF needs to do in order to understand how to get its base out to vote.”