Julius Sello Malema dropped a calculated political grenade during a widely circulated address this week, declaring that Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma has spent two decades exploiting every ally who ever stood beside him — then discarding each one without hesitation or regret.
Malema, president of the Economic Freedom Fighters and himself a former Zuma loyalist, traced the pattern back to 2005, when Zuma lost his cabinet position under then-president Thabo Mbeki amid corruption allegations. From that pivotal humiliation through the landmark ANC elective conference in Polokwane in December 2007 — where delegates rallied behind Zuma to unseat Mbeki — a ruthless cycle began. Supporters mobilised, sacrificed careers, burned bridges. Then, one by one, Malema told his audience, they were cast aside once their purpose expired.
“Zuma has used everyone and dumped them, except for his daughter Duduzile,” Malema stated, naming her specifically as the singular constant in a landscape otherwise littered with discarded comrades. Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, a prominent uMkhonto weSizwe Party figure, has remained publicly vocal in defence of her father through every legal battle, every controversy, every political rupture that followed. The EFF declined to elaborate further on the remarks beyond what Malema publicly expressed.
The charge lands with particular weight given Malema’s own biography. He led the ANC Youth League through fierce, street-level campaigns championing Zuma, only to face expulsion from the ruling organisation in 2012 — a departure many observers have long attributed to deteriorating relations with the very man he once elevated. Ace Magashule, Carl Niehaus, and dozens of lesser-known provincial operators share broadly similar trajectories: proximity, utility, abandonment.
Outside a Johannesburg community hall on Thursday evening, an older man clutching a worn MK Party membership card shook his head slowly when asked about Malema’s words. “We gave everything,” he murmured, his lanyard still bearing Zuma’s printed face from a rally months prior.
What no commentator has yet resolved is whether the remaining faithful — those still pressing membership cards and attending branch meetings under the MK Party banner — will absorb this warning before the next election cycle demands fresh sacrifice. Duduzile kept her place. Who among the current rank-and-file genuinely believes they will be next?
