The Economic Freedom Fighters fiercest fight, the party declares, is going to be to keep their red overalls on in the national assembly.
There are media reports that, failing that, their membership will go naked. We can only hope this is another instance of the journalistic licence the party is starting to complain about, at a time when the once toe-curlingly titled 'new kids on the block' are beginning to look as if they might be running out of road. Or at least out of ideas.
Parliament should never in the first place have allowed the EFF to turn up in what is party insignia. The concession was profoundly mistaken, perhaps cowardly. It flouts an institutional more that is supposed to represent all the people of South Africa and to work, in spite of great differences, for the collective good, not to divide the country's citizens into 'class enemies'.
The EFF's dress in parliament signalled danger from the first. In spite of its extravagance and the more extravagant claims for its symbolism, it has secured easy publicity for the EFF rather than any 'answers' about Nkandla - or any other issue for that matter. Nkandla, in particular, is a clear enough disgrace for the African National Congress without the need for theatre.
EFF overalls and rowdiness are not bringing the ANC to heel. They have merely provided sensational material to a media starved of something more worthwhile to report. Most dangerous of all, EFF conduct is increasing the chances of an authoritarian response from a jittery majority party that has always been out of temper with opposition and is inclined to react to it imprudently.
SA has a great and testing objective to pursue. The country and its diverse people are attempting to become a democracy under a constitution widely acknowledged for its enlightened liberalism.
Even if the ANC are clumsily throwing their weight about in the early stages of the project, it should be countered by constitutional process. The only people who profit from anarchy are the leaders of anarchy
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