Still an inconvenient youth

"Julius Malema, South Africa's eminent new socialist, was sworn in as a member of parliament on 21 May 2014, days after his political party - the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) - won more than one million votes in its first elections and secured twenty-five seats in the national assembly. It marked a new chapter in Malema's political career but it was also a crude awakening for the Cape Town parliament: the portly rebel and his EFF colleagues marched into the chamber wearing bright red workers' overalls and their signature red berets as they promised to take the interests of the poor to the floor of parliament. Populism in drag or simply Malema at his best? It is still too early to say. Love him or loathe him, Malema is undeniably one of the most controversial politicians of modern-day South Africa, if not a radical product of more than one hundred years of struggle politics." -- Back cover.