Julius Malema, head of the fourth-largest party in South Africa, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), was sentenced April 16 to five years in prison for having fired a gun during one of his rallies in 2018. Video shows him firing into the air, possibly to bring the rally to order or to begin. Afriforum, the organization of largely bitter Afrikaners, got the criminal case started at the time; it has been fought out in the courts ever since. Afriforum has now given its Malema dossier to U.S. authorities, hoping for sanctions against him.
In the past, Malema has been charged with fraud, corruption, money laundering, and racketeering, but has never gone to prison. Why, then, is he now convicted of a lesser crime and hit with such a heavy sentence? His legal counsel, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, said, “It is possible that someone else would say this sentence induces a sense of shock. We say that purely on judicial precedent and application of legal principles.” Malema will remain free during appeals of both the conviction and the sentence, which may take years.
If he goes to prison for more than a year, it will make him ineligible to sit in Parliament for five years after the end of his incarceration. It could destroy his party, which lacks strong secondary leadership. That would suit the ruling coalition of the free-market Democratic Alliance party and the kindred wing of the African National Congress, which seeks to suppress any political influence of the majority, the hungry poor and marginalized—the EFF, Zuma’s MKP, and the BRICS-oriented faction of the ANC. Malema is no hero, but the survival of his party is in the national interest.
