The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) says ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula used false and defamatory statements in an attempt to score political points ahead of the local government elections and has given him 48 hours to publicly retract and apologise for recent comments.
In a letter of demand sent through its attorneys, England Slabbert Attorneys Inc on Friday, the EFF argues that Mbalula deliberately sought to damage the party’s reputation by falsely portraying it as supportive of recent anti-illegal immigration protests and hostile towards foreign nationals.
Should Mbalula fail to comply within the stipulated 48 hours, the EFF says it has instructed its attorneys to institute legal proceedings, including an action for damages and an application for a punitive costs order.
The legal threat follows remarks made by Mbalula during an ANC media briefing on Thursday, where he accused the EFF of contributing to hostility towards foreign nationals through its past campaigns.
Mbalula said the public should “jog their memory”, referring to the EFF’s 2022 campaign in which party leader Julius Malema and party members visited restaurants, beginning at the Mall of Africa, to inspect the number of South Africans and foreign nationals employed.
“They wanted to inspect how many South Africans and how many foreigners were employed, demanding a sixty-forty quota of locals to migrants,” he said.
“Lawlessness cannot be a norm and be tolerated and violence. I’ve spoken about this and another political party, EFF was knocking on people’s doors telling foreigners to go outside the law.”
He argued that those actions had helped normalise the targeting of foreign nationals.
“The Department of Employment and Labour condemned these unlawful, self-appointed inspections at the time. That theatre, the party posing as the enforcer, hauling the foreign worker into the spotlight, helped to normalise the very targeting of the vulnerable that we now see on our streets,” Mbalula said.
He further accused the party of contradicting its current pan-African stance.
“Today the same party wishes to wrap itself in the flag of pan-Africanism. The record says otherwise. You cannot light the match in 2022 and profess shock at the fire in 2026.”
The EFF, however, has rejected those claims, specifically objecting to Mbalula’s statement that: “another political party EFF was knocking on people’s doors telling foreigners to go, outside the law.”
According to the letter, the statement leaves any reasonable listener or viewer with the impression that the EFF supports the unlawful anti-immigration protests that have swept across the country and actively participated in furthering the campaign.
“The allegations are untrue and are strenuously denied,” the attorneys wrote.
The party maintains that the allegations are contrary to its long-held political belief that Africa is one united continent, noting that Malema has publicly described the recent anti-illegal immigration protests as Afrophobia.
The EFF further argues that Mbalula’s statements are “neither true, in the public interest, nor protected by political speech” and were made maliciously to undermine the party’s reputation.
According to the letter, the remarks falsely suggest that:
• the EFF is Afrophobic;
• the party agreed with and actively participated in the unlawful anti-immigration protests;
• the EFF is inconsistent in its political views;
• the party is hypocritical and deliberately misrepresents its position to the public; and
• the EFF falsely portrays itself as a political party that believes in a united Africa.The party further argues that Mbalula presented the allegations as statements of fact despite them being “vexatious, untrue, spurious and misplaced.”
The EFF also alleges that the remarks were made deliberately to extract political advantage ahead of the November local government elections.
“It is well-known that the ANC and the EFF are political opponents,” the letter states.
The party claims Mbalula intended to cause the public to lose confidence in the EFF in an effort to inflict “maximum reputational damage” and reduce voter support before the elections.
According to the EFF, the interview containing the remarks has since been widely shared across social media platforms, including X and TikTok, while the statements have also been reproduced in news reports, compounding the alleged reputational harm.
The party has demanded that Mbalula publicly retract the remarks and issue an apology within 48 hours.
It wants the apology to take the form of a video statement in which Mbalula apologises to the EFF, retracts the statements on the basis that they are false and defamatory, and acknowledges the harm they have caused.
The EFF has further demanded that the video be published across all of Mbalula’s social media platforms, including Facebook, X, TikTok and Instagram, adding that its own communications department will distribute the statement to media houses.
