Johannesburg - Are you a party member in good standing? Do you appeal to your community and are you willing to work 24 hours a day?
If you meet the criteria, you might just be the candidate the EFF is looking for to represent the party at the municipal elections on August 3 - and become a ward councillor.
EFF leader Julius Malema said their candidates needed to possess these qualities to put up a spirited fight against the ANC at the polls.
He was addressing the media at the party's national list conference, aimed at compiling the final list of candidates, in Midrand on Monday.
Malema said he would not stand as a mayoral candidate as he had the bigger role of building the militant organisation into a fully fledged political party.
The former ANC Youth League president revealed he had received lots of calls from disgruntled ANC leaders who had not made it onto the ruling party’s candidates lists.
“Actually, I don’t want ANC people. They must go back to the ANC,”said Malema, dismissing them as opportunists, and that welcoming them would “demoralise” his army of fighters.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told journalists recently that he had been continually contacted by individuals who wanted to be candidates for councillor posts, willy-nilly.
Those individuals, he said, were making demands and issuing ultimatums and threatening to join other political parties if they were not chosen as ANC candidates.
Malema said the EFF had been mandated by its constituencies to contest all the municipal wards in the country.
“We are going to win all of them, of course. The desire is to win at all costs. It's a highly contested election. We are targeting some municipalities, but we won't name them.”
The EFF hopes to register all the candidates that would represent the party at the polls with the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) on Thursday, before making the candidates list public.
Malema also condemned the violence and intimidation his party was subjected to during its campaigning in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal at the weekend.
But he was especially happy about their reception in KZN, the largest province for the ANC in terms of membership, and the home of President Jacob Zuma.
“To get such support in an ANC base is exciting. It's only us and the ANC in this contest, unless the IEC rigs the election,” said Malema.
IEC spokeswoman Kate Bapela said that if any party was worried about the IEC rigging the elections, they should raise the matter with chief electoral officer Mosotho Moepya.
“We have just signed a code of conduct with all the political parties, and now our key focus is ensuring we are ready,” she told The Star on Monday.
Meanwhile, Malema laughed off the treason charges the ANC had laid against him, following his remarks last month that the EFF would remove the party through the barrel of a gun if it rigged the local elections.
“The ANC is just being opportunistic. I told (the ANC) I will win that thing. I will instruct my lawyers to drag it (to court) for three days so I can address the nation for three days,” he said, laughing heartily.
@luyolomkentane
The Star