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The Economic Freedom Fighters notes the attempts by Mr. Jacob Zuma, the President of the ANC to restate the Freedom Charter as if it is the programme of the ANC, while all evidence is out there for all to see that the ANC has abandoned the Freedom Charter. In the speech delivered during the rally in Cape Town, Mr. Zuma recurrently mentioned key clauses of the Freedom Charter and ‘economic freedom’, yet made no concrete commitments and programme on how the ANC government will realise the Freedom Charter and economic freedom.

The EFF is aware that the whole intention of the ANC January 8 statement was an attempt to try to copy and therefore undermine the radical and militant programme of the Economic Freedom Fighters, because our programme is the only programme that finds true resonance with the people of South Africa. The EFF remains the only radical and militant movement which unapologetically pursues a radical economic revolution programme which will change the lives of our people. An attempt by the ANC to imitate the radical programme of the EFF only through rhetoric will always be exposed as pure farce because the ANC government is implementing a neo-liberal, right wing and capitalist programme called the National Development Plan: Vision 2030.

The NDP: Vision 2030 is the official programme of the ANC, adopted in their 53rd National Conference, and any talk of the Freedom Charter is meant to mislead the people of South Africa. What we know about the Freedom Charter, which the ANC government will never implement are the following:

•     The Freedom Charter says ‘the mineral wealth beneath the soil, the banks and monopoly industries shall be transferred to the ownership of the people as a whole”, and this has been correctly understood in the former liberation movement as Nationalisation of Mines. What we know is that the ANC will never nationalise Mines because majority of its senior leaders are privately benefitting from privately owned Mines.
•     The Freedom Charter says ‘all other trade and industry shall be controlled to assist the wellbeing of the people”. What we know is that the ANC is committed to free-market capitalism and will never control trade for the benefit of the people.
•     The Freedom Charter says ‘land shall be shared amongst those who work it’. What we know as a fact is that the ANC has dismally failed to redistribute land and will continue to buy land from those who stole it, despite their admission that the willing-buyer willing-seller approach to land redistribution has dismally failed.
•     The Freedom Charter says, “all shall have the right to occupy land wherever they choose”. What we know is that the ANC government will never allow even landless people to occupy land wherever they choose, but will instead send murderous police to evict people from the land as they did in Lenasia and Lwandle.
•     The Freedom Charter says ‘the doors of learning and culture shall be opened”. What we know is that the ANC government has dismally failed to provide free quality education as post secondary level and have not built adequate capacity to absorb the entirety of students who exit the secondary schooling level.
•     The Freedom Charter says, “slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, creches and social centres”. What we know is that 21 years since the first inclusive elections with the ANC in power, more than 15% of the South African population lives in slums and informal settlements.

These key tenets of the Freedom Charter and many others are not contained in the National Development Plan, which is the official government plan of the ANC and the right wing political parties in Parliament.

The EFF speaks about the Freedom Charter because our Founding Manifesto says,

“The EFF draws inspiration from the radical, working class interpretation of the Freedom Charter, because, since its adoption in 1955, there have been various meanings given to the Freedom Charter. The EFF’s interpretation of the Freedom Charter is one which says South Africa indeed belongs to all who live in it, and ownership of South Africa’s economic resources and access to opportunities should reflect that indeed South Africa belongs to all who live in it.
The EFF’s interpretation of the Freedom Charter is that which says the transfer of mineral wealth beneath the soil, monopoly industries and banks means nationalisation of mines, banks and monopoly industries”.

The rhetorical commitment to the Freedom Charter by Mr. Zuma is nothing but an attempt to divert attention from the genuinely radical economic freedom programme and struggle of the EFF. This is done because the ANC has run out of ideas. It is evidently clear that with age and many years of existence, the ANC is not maturing, but suffering from memory loss and lack of creativity and innovation. The ANC cannot think and always rely of imitating even Kwaito musicians hence their slogan of ANC Kuze Kose and ANC Y’tjukutja because they take ideas of Kwaito musicians, not vice versa. They even tried to imitate the runaway success of the EFF’s red beret and overalls.

The EFF remains the only hope for the people of South Africa and will inspire many generations to come because when we take over political power, we will capture the State, and redistribute the economy for the benefit of all. Once again, the EFF has proven that we are the vanguard of the working class and revolutionary ideas in South African society and those who copy us should do so with care because we will always expose fake imitatations that are not genuine.

Issued by EFF