Concept

Julius Malema

Overview

Julius Sello Malema (born 3 March 1981) is a South African politician. He is the founder and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a communist and black nationalist political party since 2013. Before founding the EFF, he served as president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) from 2008 until his expulsion from the party in 2012.

As a child, Malema joined the ANC and was a highly engaged member while growing up; he was ultimately elected president of its Youth League in April 2008 under controversial circumstances. While president, he was an early proponent of nationalising South Africa's mining industry and expropriating land without compensation. He rose to national prominence as an outspoken supporter of Jacob Zuma, then ANC president and later President of South Africa.

However, Malema's relationship with Zuma became severely strained following numerous disciplinary deliberations against him by the ANC. By 2012, he was campaigning for Zuma to be removed from office ahead of the ANC's 53rd National Conference. In April of that year, months before the conference was due to take place, Malema was expelled from the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute. The following year, he founded the EFF and was elected to the National Assembly in 2014, where the party won 25 seats.

Malema has been embroiled in a variety of legal issues throughout his political career. In March 2010, he was convicted of hate speech for demeaning comments about Zuma's rape accuser. In 2012, he was charged with fraud, money laundering, and racketeering. After numerous postponements, the case was dismissed by the courts in 2015 due to repeated delays by the National Prosecuting Authority.

In 2022, Malema gave a speech against a white man who had attacked EFF members. As a consequence of that speech, in 2025, Malema was convicted of hate speech for, according to the court, "calling for [racists] to be killed". He has applied for an appeal to a higher court.

On 1 October 2025, Malema was convicted of five offences, including the illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, illegally firing a weapon in public, and reckless endangerment. The offences related to an EFF rally at which Malema fired between 14 and 15 live rounds on a stage, in front of approximately 20,000 supporters. In April 2026, he was sentenced to five years in prison for these convictions. Under the Constitution of South Africa, anyone who receives a sentence of 12 months or more without the option of a fine, and who does not have the judgement overturned on appeal, is barred from serving as a Member of Parliament for five years.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Each side honestly believes that it deserves to triumph, because two theories of society exist side by side in our thought, and men choose, unconsciously, the theory which fits their case. Because the battle is long and arduous all general theory is gradually forgotten; in the end, nothing remains but self-assertion, and when the oppressed win freedom they are as oppressive as their former masters. This is seen most…
Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
States what Julius Malema is.
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The committee are accused of having sent out bricks and stones from England for the reparation of Cape Coast Castle, on the coast of Guinea; a business for which parliament had several times granted an extraordinary sum of money. These bricks and stones, too, which had thus been sent upon so long a voyage, were said to have been of so bad a quality, that it was necessary to rebuild, from the foundation, the walls…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Close in meaning to Julius Malema; the term itself is not named.
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He would have men in the first place seek justice from their friends and neighbours, because, as he truly remarks, they know best the questions at issue; these are called in another passage arbiters rather than judges. But if they cannot settle the matter, it is to be referred to the courts of the tribes, and a higher penalty is to be paid by the party who is unsuccessful in the suit. There is a further appeal…
Plato, Laws
States what Julius Malema is.
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