EFF REJECTS ZUMA'S COMMENTS THAT ANC COMES FIRST BEFORE SOUTH AFRICA AS UTTERLY IGNORANT AND IRRESPONSIBLE

8 November 2015

The EFF rejects the comments made by President Zuma that the ANC comes first and South Africa second. Zuma made these comments at the ANC KZN Provincial Conference arguing that ANC is the revolutionary party that is above South Africa and serves as its consciousness.

These remarks are not only ahistorical in that South Africa and its people have existed way before the ANC. They are also irresponsible coming from a man who as a consequence of being an ANC president has enriched himself, his comrades and family to the detriment of ordinary South Africans. Zuma has taken millions of people's tax money to build himself a mansion in Nkandla and enriched his friends in the process.

The ANC has never been revolutionary, it has only ever associated with revolutionary formations, particular internationally. The ANC is fundamentally reformist and over the past twenty one years it has been a neoliberal reactionary entity in pursuit of a corrupt nationalist comprador bourgeois nationalism. The ANC has not worked a single day to transfer production ownership and control to the working class. It only works to tame working class power, put it to sleep whilst ANC leaders loot the state for self-aggrandizement.

The very statement by Zuma is further proof of the ideological limitations of ANC and speak volumes of his autocratic ambitions. The idea that ANC is above or comes first before South Africa is testimony that we are heading for dictatorship and the death of multiparty democracy because it means they are prepared to become one party state. This is the language of dictators who think they hold monopoly of wisdom and are indispensable.

The EFF believes that South Africa comes first. The CIC Julius Malema always maintained at the founding stages of the EFF that EFF is formed due to the love we have for South Africa. The EFF also teaches all fighters to love South Africa more that they do the EFF. This is the true virtue of a revolutionary organization: its mark of selflesness - knowing that the country comes first.

We call on the people of South Africa to reject the ANC and its leadership.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 8 November 2015