International coverage of the South African election has differed sharply from the consensus in the local media and among South African intellectuals in an important way. In the international media the Economic Freedom Fighters and the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party have regularly been described as “left” or “far left” with the EFF sometimes being described as “Marxist”. No credible left intellectuals in South Africa see either party in these terms and the EFF is seldom described this way in South Africa.
The MK party is never described in this way. There has been an ongoing debate as to the political character of the EFF in the South Africa media with some commentators describing it as fascist or neo fascist and others describing it as a form of authoritarian nationalism or authoritarian populism. Because the EFF often flip-flops on important issues such as xenophobia, a number of commentators have, correctly, changed their analyses of the party’s politics as its politics have changed.
The EFF does not come out of either of the two main left currents in the Congress alliance. These are the communist tradition anchored by the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the popular democratic left tradition first associated with the trade union movement and then some currents in the United Democratic Front. The EFF has its roots in the authoritarian nationalist current in the ANC associated with figures like Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Peter Mokaba.
Mokaba’s legacy.