Michael Blake, WWN, June 2016

The EFF Manifesto: a strange beast

On 3 August, the EFF will contest local elections for the first time, having secured over a
million votes, largely at the expense of the ANC in the national elections of 2014.
Round one in the 2016 contest, the launch of the parties manifestoes, clearly went to the EFF
who filled Orlando Stadium in Soweto with almost 60 000 supporters, while the ANC could
barely muster a third of that number.
In its Manifesto, the EFF promises to outdo all other parties in terms of accountability and
democracy. According to Malemas opening remarks to the Manifesto, the EFF seeks to
replace the ANC government with a progressive, more democratic, responsive, accountable,
and corrupt-free government. As such, the EFF expects its elected councillors in the wards
they serve, to be available to residents 24 hours a day and to convene report-back community
meetings at least once a month.
Crisis context
For the EFF, the evident and deep-seated problems of the local state are not so much bound
up with its capitalist character or the capitalist environment it operates in.
The EFF Manifesto provides more mundane explanations for the stated structural
deficiencies, including: a lack of political will, capacity problems and a poor funding model.
We are told that the current funding model cannot bridge the gap between cosmopolitan
municipalities and rural municipalities and that municipalities lack capacity to usher in
economic development.
In this account, rural underdevelopment is not bound up with decades-long unevenness of
apartheid-capitalist development and the exacerbation of social and economic inequalities in
the several decades of neoliberal capitalism.
Furthermore, mo mention is made of the worst capitalist crisis since the 1930s nor the
perfect storm economic conditions in South Africa today, that has led to 350 000 workers
losing their jobs in the first three months of 2016.
A radical programme (with qualifications)
The Manifesto declares that a minimum of 50% of the basic food items such as bread, milk,
meat products, etc. will be produced within the boundaries of the EFF Municipality.
In addition, the EFF in power will create Municipal-owned agencies to carry out the
construction and repair of housing, sanitation and roads.
Furthermore, EFF municipalities will expropriate and allocate land equitably to all residents
of the Municipality for residential, recreational, industrial, religious, and agricultural
purposes.

Finally, EFF municipalities will create jobs through direct service delivery to the people
through gradual abolition of tenders; and will also insource all workers that perform
municipality work.
This is indeed a radical programme.
Across the whole country, it throws down a serious challenge: to existing businesses that
make their profits constructing subsidised housing, infrastructure and roads; to monopoly
capital in the agricultural, food processing and retail sectors; and to land-owners and property
developers.
The EFFs radical, populist and highly decentralised local economic programme however is
qualified in key respects.
Firstly, the EFFs response to the rapid and increased privatisation of municipal functions
through the tendering and outsourcing system, is not an equally rapid remunicipalisation but
the gradual abolition of tenders.
Secondly, the programme of land expropriation, which goes hand in hand with the 50% local
production of food, does not include the phrase without compensation.
These two compromises in the text of the Manifesto, correspond with the EFFs shift from a
commitment to wholesale nationalisation, to a 60-40 public-private position; and even, more
recently, a declaration to investors that it is open to a further reduction in the states share.
Budget compromises
The proposed measures for financing its local government commitments are curiously less
than radical - indeed arguably neoliberal - in character.
In Section C, in its own words, the Manifesto sets out how the EFF Municipality will
finance and generate finance to fund the Manifesto and all commitments made.
Here there is no call to tax the rich or for a radical cross subsidization of the poor by the rich.
Instead, the Manifesto articulates an arguably neoliberal discourse that speaks of: efficient
spending of the allocated budget; a commitment that 60% of the allocated budget will be
spent on the delivery of services, as opposed to intra-municipality salaries and
operations; and (o)ptimal collection and efficient allocation of revenue.
Efficiency is a typical neoliberal watchword in this declared time of austerity. Furthermore,
the counterposition of service provision and salaries echoes the Finance Ministers key
austerity provision of a lower public sector wage bill.
Surely, the insourcing of services, especially on the basis of a decent living wage and
pension fund for municipal workers, will require both a municipal workforce and, in turn, a
wage/salary bill that are greatly expanded.

Furthermore, it is not clear whether optimal collection of the outstanding revenue on water,
electricity and rates means that EFF municipalities will impose full cost recovery on the
many struggling working class and middle class households who owe billions of rands.
In addition, the Manifesto does not condemn pre-paid meters as a hated neoliberal tool but
promises options to members of the individual household if they choose to use pre-paid
electricity or post-paid electricity.
The Manifesto goes on to say that further funding will be sourced from progressive
international partners and corporate social investment contributions from the private
sector.
Gone are the calls, included in the 2014 National Election Manifesto, for massive hikes in
company tax and the taxation of financial speculation.
In conclusion, rather than a cogent Manifesto we have a strange, disjointed and
contradictory beast; that wants to breathe fire and whisper sweet nothings at the same time.
Are the silences, qualifiers and compromises telling signs of a party ready to be pragmatic
given the prospect of capturing state power in the local sphere, either on its own or in
coalition?
EFF supporters would do well to reflect on developments in Greece over the past decade.
Syriza became popular as an anti-austerity party, went on to win the national elections; and
today, just a few years later, is implementing harsh austerity measures against the Greek
working class.
Whatever the elections result, the coming period will continue to be a roller-coaster ride for
the EFF, its supporters and the working class as a whole.