Julius Malema slipped quietly into the room,
looking cheerful, perhaps a little slimmer than
on our last encounter, and quite the opposite of
the rabble-rousing, Mugabe-in-the-making
demagogue that his enemies and critics in South
Africa and abroad still like to portray.
"Marriage," he said by way of an explanation,
and fell onto a sofa with a happy sigh. He
recently married a woman from his
neighbourhood in Limpopo.
But as the "commander-in-chief" of South
Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party
began our interview, two things soon struck me.
The first is that Mr Malema has evolved from a
hectoring, skittish, "rough-diamond" of a
politician into something much more polished
and impressive.
The second thing - which grew on me over the
course of perhaps half an hour of talking - was
quite how imprudent South Africa's governing
ANC were to lose hold of him, and let him break
off to form the EFF.
"The ANC is not only threatened [by us], it
repeats us. Everything we say, the ANC comes
after us to repeat. We're fighting the issue of
the land, we're saying economic freedom in our
lifetime, they're saying the same," he declared.
And he has a point. The EFF won only 6.3% of
the national vote last year, but they behave - and
rattle the ANC - as if they were the official
opposition, routinely setting the agenda.
"I know for a fact that the EFF is listed as a
threat to the state by the intelligence
[agencies]... The instruction is 'find anything
wrong so we can nail him down,'" said Mr
Malema, while admitting he had no proof.
#PayBackTheMoney
Mr Malema still calls himself a socialist, anti-
imperialist revolutionary, determined to destroy
the system from within. "I'm not a member of
the establishment," he told me vehemently, when
I mentioned his MP's perks and salary.
But he's found a way to merge that rhetoric with
a more aspirational, individualistic message
about getting ahead that borrows from figures
like Hugo Chavez.
I suggested that his approach was riddled with
hypocrisy - a claim he batted away with his usual
confidence. "We are finding a way of living with
capitalism while fighting it. Our struggle is not to
stay in the shacks - it is not a struggle of
sameness."
For months, Mr Malema and his fellow MPs have
managed to energise South Africa's parliament
with their red uniforms, heckling and demanding
furiously for President Jacob Zuma to
#PayBackTheMoney - as the online campaign
has it - from the state-funded renovations of his
Nkandla homestead.
Now, Mr Malema told me he is planning to
disrupt the president's State of the Nation
address to parliament next month.
"First he must answer questions," said Mr
Malema.
"And if he does not?" I asked.
"We are going to insist... we will make him
answer. We will put more pressure on him. There
is no need for publicity stunts - there is a need
for political principles. We have taken a decision
to fight and confront corruption - and the face of
corruption, which is President Zuma."
Apartheid strategy
Julius Malema is currently facing his own
charges of racketeering and fraud, which should
come to trial this August. He blithely rejected
the case against him, insisting he is "the victim
of a [political] witch-hunt".
Next on the EFF's agenda is a nationwide
escalation of the "land occupation" activities it
has already begun around Pretoria - which the
city's mayor has condemned as "perpetuating
anarchy".
Pretoria "is just the start. We are not going to
stop now. We are putting the necessary
pressure. Let the people have land", said Mr
Malema, of the crowds brought in to seize
unoccupied plots.
I asked him about a comment he had made this
week to another journalist, where he appeared to
be welcoming the possibility of violence.
"Sending in police works very well in favour of
the EFF because you [are] going to shoot
innocent people... and the next thing you have
mobilized them into the EFF," he had told the
SAPA news agency.
Was that not, I suggested, a politician using the
poor as cannon fodder for his own ends?
"No. [The police] are using the apartheid
strategy. Using apartheid tactics will work
against you. We are sending our own members...
the EFF is just joining the people's struggle. The
land occupation is not Julius Malema's idea," he
said.
"We are in a struggle to liberate our people.
We're not in the business of impressing the
middle class... I know what I believe in, and what
I am pursuing. Rural women continue to be the
subject of exploitation by white monopoly
capital.
"Those are the people, 21 years into democracy,
who still live in the shacks, who still do not have
water, who still do not have electricity. I come
from that background. That is why I fight to
liberate them from the chains of poverty,
inequality and unemployment. What other people
say really does not matter to me," he continued.
Mr Malema's tone was smooth and confident
throughout. People have always under-estimated
him - the boorish youth with no education. But
not any longer.
Many South Africans clearly reject the radical
policy solutions - land seizures without
compensation, across-the-board nationalisation -
that the EFF is offering for the country's
economic woes. But few now dismiss - and even
his critics seem to quietly enjoy - Mr Malema's
piercing diagnosis of the governing party's flaws
and failures.
Towards the end of our meeting we discussed
the red workers uniforms his MPs wear in
parliament, and Mr Malema - as if to prove that
he wasn't an entirely polished diamond these
days - showed a flash of the old fire.
"I wear what I like, and if you are not happy with
it look for the nearest river and jump into it," he
said. Then smiled.
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