EDITORIAL: The EFF’s limits

There is a good deal to learn from the EFF’s protest on Monday, which it rather grandiosely branded a “national shutdown”. It was in reality a damp squib. Though the party will undoubtedly deny this and blame external factors for the general lack of support, the party’s failure to engage the public imagination is a blow to the EFF’s leadership.

The EFF threw the kitchen sink at this event. It called for disruption to national key points. It threatened those who wanted to work, and social media was an incoherent mess of melodrama and misinformation.

The EFF shot to prominence on a brand of brownshirt tactics and radical socialism, seeking to capitalise on the frustrations of the poor. Now, though, just as a role in government seems possible, it has been unable to express clearly what it stands for. Nor does it seem able to persuade the poor that it speaks for them.

Perhaps more importantly, the protest taught us about ourselves. There is an obvious fear in SA of a repeat of 2021’s disaster in KwaZulu-Natal, and the EFF managed to spook the country on the basis of that. But it’s an old trick now; South Africans appear more interested in those who offer solutions to our country’s problems. The EFF has some way to go to persuade people that it has any.

The state’s response was strong, showing far better organisation and capacity than SA has seen for some time. We would like to see such a spirited response to our many other crises.