Photo courtesy buzzsouthafrica.com
By Sarah Lockwood
The media flurry that has surrounded Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) since their inception has often presented them as a serious threat to ANC hegemony in South Africa. But, while the EFF has the potential to present the greatest electoral threat that the ANC has ever faced, they are currently held back by their limited policy development and choice of unconventional political tactics.
On 31 March 2015, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan made history when he telephoned his rival, Muhammadu Buhari, to concede defeat in the country’s presidential elections. In the days that followed, newspapers around the world published numerous articles praising Jonathan’s peaceful concession, suggesting that this event might be the beginning of something bigger – a continent-wide challenge to entrenched-party rule. If Nigeria, with its history of coups and bloody battles for governmental control, could engage in its first peaceful democratic transition, the articles argued, then perhaps the time is right for the same thing to happen elsewhere.