Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), South African political party formed in 2013 by former African National Congress (ANC) member Julius Malema and others. The party embraced a leftist stance and touted economic emancipation.
Malema, a longtime ANC member, became president of the ANC Youth League in 2008. He was well known for his controversial statements and behaviour, which ultimately led to his expulsion from the ANC in 2012. The next year he and others established the Economic Freedom Fighters party to challenge the ANC in the 2014 elections. Malema became the party’s leader.
The EFF presented itself as a “radical, leftist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movement.” The party’s manifesto included many of the controversial propositions that Malema had promoted while in the ANC, including the nationalization of mines and banks in South Africa and the expropriation of land for redistribution, all toward the goal of economic emancipation. The manifesto also called for a number of initiatives to increase access to quality education and improve health and welfare services, and it decried corruption and discrimination. The EFF quickly found support, particularly among young adults, the poor, and the unemployed.
The party made an impressive debut in the 2014 elections, winning about 6 percent of the national vote—enough to give the EFF 25 seats in the National Assembly. At the provincial level, the party won enough votes to have a presence in every provincial legislature. The EFF continued to grow in popularity and gain support. It did extremely well in the 2019 elections, taking almost 11 percent of the national vote, which increased its number of seats in the National Assembly to 44. The party saw significant growth at the provincial level, increasing its share of seats in all nine provincial legislatures and taking official opposition party status in three provinces. In the 2024 elections, the EFF saw its share of the national vote decline slightly, to just under 10 percent, likely having lost some of its support to the nascent uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party). The ANC also lost support to the new party and, for the first time since it took power in 1994, needed to explore options to form a coalition. Malema voiced his willingness for the EFF to be involved in a governing coalition with the ANC.