Former Newcastle Mayor Nkululeko Ntuthuko Mahlaba, a KwaZulu-Natal MPL and chairperson of committees in the provincial legislature, died early on Saturday after being struck by a vehicle while jogging in Newcastle, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal said.

Mahlaba, also a former MEC for Sports, Arts and Culture and Public Works and Human Settlements, was serving as a member of the ANC’s Provincial Task Team at the time of his death.

“The news of his sudden departure has cast a dark, painful, and impenetrable cloud over the entire province and the broader liberation movement. We are frozen in disbelief that a life so full of vigour, promise, and revolutionary commitment could be extinguished so abruptly at the dawn of the morning,” the ANC said in a statement on Saturday.

The party said Mahlaba had held several senior political positions in KwaZulu-Natal, including chairperson of the ANC in the Mbuso Kubheka Region, formerly eMalahleni, and former provincial treasurer of the ANC. He had also previously chaired the ANC Youth League.

“Death has robbed us of a revolutionary doctor, a fearless youth leader, and a disciplined cadre who commanded the respect of friends and political foes alike,” the ANC said.

“We have lost a titan of the working class, Cde Dr. Mahlaba’s life was a masterclass in organic leadership. Rising through the fiery ranks of student politics, he was a leader who never outsourced his revolutionary responsibilities.”

The ANC said Mahlaba’s leadership had strengthened the party’s presence in the province’s hinterland and that he had left “an indelible mark on infrastructure development and community upliftment”.

“In his latest deployment as Chair of Chairs in the KZN Legislature, he demonstrated absolute fairness, parliamentary astuteness, and an unshakeable adherence to holding governance accountable to the citizens of KwaZulu-Natal,” the party said.

The ANC extended condolences to Mahlaba’s wife, Dr Busi Mahlaba, their children, his family, comrades in the Mbuso Kubheka Region and members of the public.

“The banners of the ANC fly at half-mast today in honour of a man who gave everything to the struggle for a better South Africa,” it said.

“The ANC humble request the members of the public and media to give the family privacy while dealing with this tragedy.”

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President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed former communications minister Dina Pule as Minister of Social Development, returning her to Cabinet more than a decade after Parliament’s ethics committee found her guilty of breaching its code of conduct.

Pule was fired by then-President Jacob Zuma in July 2013 and sanctioned by Parliament’s ethics committee, which found that she had failed to disclose her personal relationship with businessman Phosane Mngqibisa.

The committee found that Mngqibisa had benefited from government-funded overseas trips and official meetings despite having no formal role in the Department of Communications, and that his company, Khemano, was paid R6 million for the 2012 ICT Indaba. Mngqibisa also told the committee he had received R600,000 as a “salary”.

Pule’s appointment was announced on Tuesday evening by The Presidency as part of changes to the national executive following consultations between Ramaphosa and the leadership of the Democratic Alliance.

The Presidency said Pule would fill the vacant Social Development portfolio, while several DA figures would be moved into ministerial and deputy ministerial posts across departments.

Willem Aucamp has been appointed Minister of Agriculture, while David Maynier becomes Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.

Ramaphosa also appointed former DA leader and former Agriculture minister John Steenhuisen as Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition. Alexandra Abrahams was named Deputy Minister of Electricity and Energy, Jack Bloom Deputy Minister of Water and Sanitation, and Yusuf Cassim Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

The changes affect the portfolios of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and the environment, trade, industry and competition, electricity and energy, higher education, and water and sanitation.

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Expelled uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party members Nhlamulo Ndhlela and Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla said on Sunday they would challenge their removal in the courts, calling it unlawful and politically motivated.

Addressing a media briefing in Johannesburg, Ndhlela said that the party had failed to follow proper disciplinary processes before announcing their removal.

“We will write to our lawyers to look into our expulsion. No proper disciplinary processes were followed,” said Ndhlela.

He said the decision was part of an attempt to seize control of the party.

“This is an attempt to hijack the MK Party. We reject this. MK is a liberation movement, not a political project for a few individuals,” Ndhlela told journalists.

Ndhlela maintained that he and Zuma-Sambudla had been expelled on “unfounded allegations” and denied wrongdoing.

“We were expelled on unfounded allegations. The people of South Africa did not vote for internal battles within the party. We reject these allegations,” he said.

He also claimed party leaders had used the death of MK Party Member of Parliament Mzikayise “Muzi” Ntshingila as a “weapon” against them and part of the reason for their expulsion.

“They were looking for anything to put us down. They used our friend’s death,” said Ndhlela.

Zuma-Sambudla, meanwhile, disputed reports that she had been expelled, while Ndhlela said she had left the party voluntarily.

“Duduzile Zuma was not expelled, that’s a lie. She resigned on her own,” Ndhlela said.

The briefing came days after the MK Party announced their expulsion with immediate effect.

In a statement issued on Thursday, MK Party secretary-general Sibonelo Nomvalo said the two had violated the party’s constitution and engaged in conduct that undermined organisational unity, discipline and cohesion.

According to the party, Zuma-Sambudla repeatedly made public statements and social media posts that promoted factional narratives, challenged party decisions and discredited recognised leadership structures.

Ndhlela was accused of acting without organisational authority, convening media briefings without approval and creating confusion about official party processes and leadership arrangements.

The MK Party also cited the conduct of both leaders following Ntshingila’s illness and death, alleging that they became involved in matters relating to the late MP without the knowledge or consent of his family.

Ntshingila’s partner, Ayanda Maseko, pushed back against those claims during Sunday’s briefing, saying the late MP remained capable of making his own decisions before and after his hospitalisation.

“He drove himself to the hospital during his first hospitalisation. Mzi was very capable of making his own decisions before and after being hospitalised,” Maseko said.

Maseko also defended Zuma-Sambudla’s involvement during Ntshingila’s illness.

“I was accompanied by Duduzile Zuma. She was there for me throughout the journey from Muzi being sick until now. Her presence comforted me,” she said.

Zuma-Sambudla also used the briefing to criticise individuals surrounding her father, MK Party leader Jacob Zuma.

“I don’t take any responsibility. I blame the people around him and I don’t blame my father. Up to date we have not had any great secretaries-general,” she said.

Ndhlela said many of those occupying senior positions lacked the experience and competence to run the organisation.

“From day one the organisation has not had people who can run this party. They just want to abuse power. Most secretaries-general were never on the ground and don’t understand the party,” he said.

“There is an issue of competencies.”

Despite their fallout with the party leadership, Ndhlela insisted neither he nor Zuma-Sambudla intended abandoning the party.

“We are staying with the MK Party,” he said..

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ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa led the party’s voter registration campaign in Ekurhuleni on Saturday as South Africans head to voting stations for the first day of the voter registration weekend ahead of the November Local Government Elections.

Ramaphosa arrived in KwaThema on Saturday morning, where he received a briefing from ANC Gauteng convener Panyaza Lesufi, provincial spokesperson Mzi Khumalo and other party leaders on preparations for the registration drive.

Speaking to the media while he was engaging with citizens, he said: “I’m finding that there’s a lot of enthusiasm amongst voters, and particularly the young voters.

“I’ve encountered a number of them, and they all are enthusiastic to register to vote, and for me that is really uplifting, that the work that is being done by government is resulting in young people wanting to participate to be active citizens and to register to vote, so that their voices can be heard.”

As cold as it was in Johannesburg on Saturday, he said, there was “quite a lot of buzz and activity”.

It was also good to meet older citizens who were “braving the cold”, he said, to check their voter registration status.

“This is what citizenship and citizenry is all about, so there’s a very joyous and pleasant mood from young people to older people,” he said.

The ANC said the campaign is aimed at encouraging eligible citizens, particularly young people and first-time voters, to register and verify their voter details ahead of the local government elections on 4 November.

Ramaphosa is expected to visit four voting districts in KwaThema and Katlehong during the day as part of the party’s mobilisation campaign.

Voting stations across the country opened at 08:00 on Saturday and will remain open until 17:00. The stations will reopen on Sunday, allowing voters to register, update their details or check their registration status.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday that youth unemployment had become South Africa’s defining post-apartheid challenge, as the country marked 50 years since the 1976 Soweto uprising.

Speaking at the national Youth Day commemoration at the FNB Stadium precinct in Johannesburg, Ramaphosa said South Africa had made significant gains since apartheid, including expanded access to education, higher education funding and public employment programmes.

But he said the central challenge was whether those gains were translating into jobs, skills and dignity for young people.

“The question before us today is not whether young people have the courage to change South Africa. The youth of 1976 answered that question,” Ramaphosa said. “The question before us is whether South Africa is doing enough to create opportunities worthy of their sacrifice.”

Youth Day marks the anniversary of June 16, 1976, when schoolchildren in Soweto marched against apartheid education and the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Police opened fire on protesters, turning the uprising into one of the defining moments of resistance to white minority rule.

Ramaphosa said the youth of 1976 had fought exclusion from education, while today’s generation faced joblessness, poverty and inequality.

“Theirs was the struggle to enter the classroom. Ours is the struggle to ensure that what begins in the classroom does not end in the unemployment queue.”

Ramaphosa said more than 4.7 million young South Africans were unemployed and that the youth unemployment rate stood at 46 percent.

“Behind every statistic is a young person who wants to work, wants to contribute and wants to build a future,” he said. “We cannot accept this as normal.”

He said young people were also among those most affected by violent crime and theft, describing unemployment and insecurity as threats to South Africa’s prosperity and social stability.

In a speech delivered amid rising public anger over crime, unemployment, poor service delivery and illegal immigration, Ramaphosa warned against blaming foreign nationals for South Africa’s domestic problems.

“Even as we recognise the challenge of illegal immigration – which we are taking decisive action to address – our problems are our own. And which we have a responsibility to fix ourselves,” he said.

He said frustrations in communities were real, but that the roots of the crisis lay elsewhere.

“The roots of these challenges lie primarily in inequality, slow economic growth and weaknesses in service delivery,” Ramaphosa said. “Addressing these challenges requires practical solutions, not the scapegoating of vulnerable people.”

Ramaphosa said government was responding on three fronts: expanding public employment, youth service and workplace experience; reshaping the skills system so qualifications led more directly to work; and opening the productive economy to young people.

He said more than 5.7 million young people were registered on the SA Youth.mobi platform, with more than 2 million gaining access to earning opportunities. He said the Presidential Employment Stimulus had created work and livelihood opportunities for more than 2.5 million unemployed South Africans, of whom 82 percent were young people and 66 percent were women.

He also said the revitalised National Youth Service had placed more than 130,000 young people in paid service opportunities, with an additional 100,000 community service youth employment opportunities currently available.

Ramaphosa said the state would invest R1 trillion in infrastructure over the next three years, including roads, dams, schools, hospitals, clinics, electricity lines, railways and ports.

“This investment will create apprenticeships, artisan development, skills transfer and enterprise development for young people,” he said.

He called on employers to hire young people without demanding experience they had never had the chance to gain.

“The young person in front of you does not lack ability. They lack only the chance to prove it,” Ramaphosa said. “Hire for potential, not only for experience.”

Ramaphosa said government would strengthen support through the Employment Tax Incentive, saying the first job was “the hardest to get and the most important a person ever has.”

He also urged young people to register and vote in the 4 November local government elections, saying they should be central to fixing municipalities, not only as councillors but as “engineers, planners, artisans, water technicians, electricians, data specialists and entrepreneurs”.

He said the best way to honour the generation of 1976 was not through remembrance alone, but through building a country where young people could learn, work, serve, build, create and own.

“Let us honour them not in words alone, but in deeds,” he said. “Where opportunity is not the privilege of a few, but the birthright of all.”

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The uMkhonto weSizwe Party has suspended its under-fire parliamentary chief whip, Mmabatho Mokoena-Zondi, after she was arrested and charged with fraud over allegations that she defrauded party-linked researchers of more than R200,000 in 2024.

The party said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening that Mokoena-Zondi’s membership had been suspended with immediate effect pending an internal investigation into allegations of corruption.

The decision followed a meeting earlier in the day between MK Party president Jacob Zuma and the party’s national officials.

“Ms Mokoena-Zondi has been instructed to hand over all party documents, records, assets and any other party-related materials in her possession with immediate effect. Cde Philasande Mkhize has been appointed chief whip effective immediately,” the party said.

Mokoena-Zondi appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court last week after handing herself over to authorities. She was charged with fraud and released on R30,000 bail.

The matter was transferred to the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court, where she is expected to appear again on 18 June.

Hawks spokesperson Warrant Officer Zinzi Hani said at the time that she was released on stringent bail conditions.

Hani said the charges related to allegations that Mokoena-Zondi recruited four people to work as researchers for the party between August and December 2024, and subsequently demanded payments from their salaries, claiming the money was needed to cover legal costs for former president Jacob Zuma.

Hani said the alleged fraud amounted to about R233,317.99.

In the same statement announcing Mokoena-Zondi’s suspension, the MK Party also said, without giving further context, that Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, held no official position in the party.

“The MKP also further wishes to place on record that Ms Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla holds no official position or responsibility within the party and her role was limited to that of an ordinary party member and she does not exercise any authority on behalf of the party,” it said.

Zuma-Sambudla is currently on trial in the Durban High Court on charges of incitement to commit terrorism and incitement to commit public violence related to social media posts during the July 2021 civil unrest. She has pleaded not guilty.

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South African Communist Party (SACP) Secretary-General Solly Mapaila says the country’s working class can no longer afford to remain divided, as the Conference of the Left concluded on Sunday with a commitment to coordinate campaigns against unemployment, poverty, inequality and privatisation.

Addressing delegates at the close of the three-day conference in Boksburg, Mapaila said the gathering had demonstrated the possibility of cooperation among left-wing political parties, trade unions, community organisations and social movements despite their differences.

“The working class of South Africa can no longer afford fragmentation, passivity and sectarianism or endless tactical paralysis,” Mapaila said.

“The working class has no reason to remain divided at this hour of its need.”

The conference adopted a political declaration and agreed to establish a Council of the Left, a coordinating structure that will bring together participating organisations to drive campaigns and programmes agreed to during the conference.

Mapaila said the council would not be a new political party and would not contest elections, but would instead coordinate action among organisations participating in the initiative.

The council is expected to hold its first meeting within six weeks.

Delegates adopted a programme focused on economic transformation, the cost-of-living crisis, land reform, public healthcare, climate justice and international solidarity.

The declaration calls for state-led industrialisation, public investment and job creation programmes, saying that unemployment should not be accepted as a permanent feature of South African society.

The conference also supported the expansion of public, worker, cooperative and community ownership in key sectors of the economy and called for greater democratic control over production, finance, land and energy resources.

Participants rejected privatisation and outsourcing, saying that both have weakened workers and undermined public services.

Mapaila said one of the urgent tasks facing the left was opposing what he described as the privatisation of strategic state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and public services.

The declaration also commits participating organisations to supporting mass action, including demonstrations, strikes and community campaigns around issues affecting working-class communities.

Delegates identified the rising cost of living as one of the most pressing challenges facing South Africans and called for action against food price increases, high electricity tariffs, transport costs and other basic expenses.

The conference further endorsed the National Health Insurance (NHI) programme and called for the strengthening of public healthcare services.

On land reform, delegates resolved that land dispossessed through colonialism and apartheid should be returned to African people and that land redistribution should be accelerated.

The conference also adopted a position on energy policy, calling for an energy mix that includes renewable energy, coal and nuclear power under public ownership and democratic planning.

Delegates rejected what they described as externally imposed energy transition models that threaten jobs, industrialisation and energy security.

International issues featured prominently in the declaration, with delegates expressing solidarity with Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Western Sahara and countries in the Sahel region.

The conference reaffirmed support for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and called for intensified solidarity with Palestinians.

Mapaila said the conference had attracted more delegates than organisers initially expected and described it as the beginning of a longer process aimed at rebuilding working-class unity.

“We are together and we will fight together,” he said. 

“The future belongs to organised working class.”

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Left-wing political parties and organisations are heading into the final day of the Conference of the Left on Sunday, with speakers having called for a united front against poverty, inequality, neo-colonialism, and the Government of National Unity (GNU).

The three-day conference, convened by the South African Communist Party (SACP) at the Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg, has brought together political parties, trade unions, civic organisations and other left formations as the SACP seeks to build a coordinated platform outside the traditional boundaries of the ANC-led alliance.

The SACP has said the aim is to strengthen “coordination, unity in action, political education and organised struggle among diverse left, working-class and popular formations”.

Political parties represented at the conference include the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA), uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MKP), Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO), United Africans Transformation (UAT), Workers’ Socialist Party and Afrika Mayibuye Movement.

The gathering comes amid deepening tensions between the ANC and the SACP after the ANC stayed away from the conference, dismissing it as a gathering that did not represent the left. The SACP has rejected that criticism and says the conference is intended to build working-class unity, not create a new political party.

PAC secretary for finance Jackie Seroke told delegates that South Africa’s democratic order had failed to resolve the structural poverty and dispossession inherited from colonialism and apartheid.

He said South Africa’s constitutional democracy should be understood in the context of what PAC founder Robert Sobukwe described as a “colossal fraud”, referring to the 1909 Act of Union.

Seroke said the conference should articulate the aspirations of the African majority and define the transformation sought by the PAC against “imperialism” and “settler colonialism”.

“Imperialism is the one that allows this government or regimes or leadership that runs these countries not to do as the people wish,” he said.

He said struggles against settler colonialism and “neo-colonialism” had to confront political and economic systems in Africa and South Africa that, in his view, served imperial interests rather than the needs of ordinary people.

“We should be united against this force until such time that the Palestinian people are free. This means Africa itself must also be free. New colonial Africa has held us back,” he said.

“Africa has the majority of young people, and young people must be properly educated and political to fight against settler colonialism and neo-colonialism.”

Seroke said unity among oppressed people was essential if left formations were to build a credible alternative.

“We say that to define settler colonialism is to define imperialism. Imperialism is a common enemy of all oppressed people.”

Afrika Mayibuye Movement first deputy president Thato Wa Magogodi said the conference should not become a platform for political egos or symbolic identity politics, but should focus on practical left-wing solutions to the problems facing poor and working-class communities.

He said the cost-of-living crisis had moved beyond political theory and was being felt directly by households.

“In 2026, the cost of living in South Africa is not an academic graph. It is a throat being squeezed,” he said.

Magogodi spoke about the rising cost of paraffin, mealie-meal and taxi fares, saying these consumed a significant portion of workers’ wages while poor communities remained exposed to “unfair economic pressure”.

He said the left had to unite around practical measures to alleviate poverty, politicise the masses towards socialism and build a platform capable of advancing a more radical programme.

Magogodi said a multipolar world did not automatically mean a more just world, warning that capitalism could survive under several centres of power.

“The reality is that a few other poles – can still be many carts pulling the same wagon of capitalism underpinned by the same imbalance of power between the owners of the means of production and those who own only their labour but are still poor,” he said.

“Our task here in South Africa and everywhere else in the world is to commit these new poles to a credible, sustainable left agenda – one that will bend the shift in power towards the worker, the landless, and the structurally excluded.”

He said the task of the conference was to help build a revolutionary centre rooted in “total freedom and emancipation” and cautioned left formations against becoming distracted by electoral pacts or personalities.

He warned against “three dangers for the left”: separatism, opportunism and adventurism.

“Marx also discourages us against left purism and the tendency of left formations to oppose each other for the sake of it – which is also a poison in the theatre of revolution,” he said.

Magogodi said the left should also adopt a triple-oppression framework that recognises the oppression of women as a class, as a gender and as a race.

“If we are committed to gender emancipation, let show that in theory and in practice,” he said.

AZAPO president Nelvis Qekema said the conference should not become another “talk shop” or meaningless national dialogue, but should build a fighting united front with clear political objectives.

“The GNU is a minority government formed by the ANC and the DA, which represents white supremacy. Why was it difficult for the ANC to accommodate the EFF or the MKP?” he asked.

Qekema said any forum seeking only limited reforms would not be worth pursuing.

“We have to be serious. It could not be that Biko, Sobukwe or Hani died for a limited democracy. Democracy is class-based,” he said.

He said land remained central to the national question and could not be separated from dignity, culture and liberation.

“Land is important to resolve the national question. Land is not outside of ourselves as human beings. Humanity, dignity and culture are anchored on land. We need to be very clear on the land.”

Qekema warned against reducing the struggle to elections, saying Parliament was only one site of political contestation and that movements needed to build pressure from outside formal institutions.

He said political elitism could undermine the unity project if parties or leaders treated themselves as more important than others.

“As AZAPO, we are here because we believe that neo-colonialism is the fundamental problem. There is a difference between a ruling party and a ruling class,” he said.

“The GNU is ruling on behalf of the ruling class. The GNU is led by the black managerial class which is a mere manager of the capitalist system on behalf of the ruling class.”

The conference is expected to conclude on Sunday with delegates considering a declaration, a Council of the Left and a common programme of action.

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Claims that the African National Congress (ANC) stayed away from the Conference of the Left because of the participation of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, led by former ANC and state president Jacob Zuma, surfaced during the second day of the gathering in Boksburg on Saturday.

Addressing delegates, Shosholoza Party representative Dr Ray Rasenthu suggested that opposition to the MK Party’s presence was behind the ANC’s decision not to participate in the conference.

“I’m told at the ANC, this is based on rumour comrades, it’s boycotting the comrades because they are objecting to the presence of certain political parties here,” Rasenthu said.

“I’m told they are not happy with the MK presence in this conference.”

The remarks come just days after ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula announced that the party would not attend the three-day conference, which has brought together left-wing political parties, trade unions, activists and community organisations at the Birchwood Hotel.

At the time, Mbalula described the conference as “a political project dressed in theoretical clothing” and rejected claims that it represented a genuine gathering of left-wing formations.

The MK Party is among the organisations participating in the conference alongside the Economic Freedom Fighters, Azapo, the Pan Africanist Congress and several socialist organisations.

Rasenthu raised the issue while questioning the absence of senior ANC leaders from the event.

“Has socialism failed? Where are the communists? Who in the left is left?” he asked delegates.

He specifically questioned the absence of Gwede Mantashe and Buti Manamela, saying that divisions within the left movement were becoming increasingly visible.

The Shosholoza Party leader also called on the MK Party to publicly distance itself from allegations linking it to the anti-illegal immigration “March and March” movement, warning that unresolved concerns could deepen tensions within the conference.

“We need an explanation from the MKP,” he said.

Despite those concerns, Rasenthu praised MK deputy president Tony Yengeni’s address to delegates on the opening day of the conference.

“I like the speech by Comrade Tony Yengeni yesterday. It represented what we need,” he said.

The conference, convened by the South African Communist Party and other left formations, is expected to conclude on Sunday.

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Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says the African National Congress’s (ANC) alliance with the Democratic Alliance (DA) has exposed what he described as the governing party’s embrace of neoliberalism and capitalist governance.

Speaking at the Conference of the Left in Boksburg, Malema said the partnership between the ANC and DA showed that sections of the ANC leadership had abandoned radical economic transformation.

“The alliance between the ANC and the Democratic Alliance was a profound ideological revelation because it demonstrates the extent to which sections of the ANC leadership have become reconciled to neoliberal governance and capitalist management,” Malema said.

The ANC boycotted the conference on Wednesday, labelling it “a coalition of negation” aimed primarily at opposing the ANC. 

Malema said that the ANC had become politically defensive as it lost support and legitimacy among working-class communities.

“It is within this context that we agree with the observation advanced by the South African Communist Party that the ANC increasingly interprets all independent political organisation outside of itself as hostility or betrayal,” he said.

Malema told delegates that South Africa’s democratic breakthrough in 1994 had failed to dismantle economic inequality and concentrated ownership.

“Political apartheid formally ended, yet economic apartheid survived through property relations, financial concentration, unequal land ownership and the continued domination of strategic sectors by white private capital,” he said.

He said millions of South Africans remained excluded from meaningful economic participation, with official unemployment above 32% and youth unemployment above 60%.

According to Malema, the country’s social problems, including crime, gender-based violence, drug abuse and community breakdown, were rooted in economic exclusion and inequality.

“The crisis confronting humanity is capitalism functioning exactly as it was designed to function. The system produces abundance for a minority precisely through the organised deprivation of the majority,” he said.

Malema also criticised xenophobia and Afrophobia, warning against blaming migrants for unemployment and failing public services.

“Poor Africans from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia or elsewhere on the continent are not responsible for unemployment, inequality, or collapsing public services,” he said.

He called for greater unity among left-wing organisations, trade unions and progressive formations, arguing that progressive politics had become weakened by divisions and organisational fragmentation.

“This conference must therefore become more than a symbolic gathering of progressive organisations. It must become the beginning of a serious historical process aimed at reconstructing ideological clarity, organisational discipline, and revolutionary strategy,” he said.

Malema reiterated the EFF’s support for land expropriation without compensation, nationalisation of mines and banks, state-led industrialisation, free education and healthcare, and Pan-African economic development.

He also defended Cuba and Venezuela, saying both countries had resisted imperialist pressure and prioritised social needs over corporate profit.

“The issue has never been democracy. The issue is control over resources, sovereignty and economic direction,” he said.

Malema concluded by urging left-wing movements to rebuild working-class organisation and resist what he described as the growing global dominance of capitalism and right-wing politics.

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