Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy president Godrich Gardee has labelled AfriForum “lizards” trying to distract the party from focusing on its election campaign.

“Ours is to focus on the 4th of November. We won’t be distracted by lizards. We have got a crocodile to face on the 4th of November,” Gardee told journalists on Monday on the sidelines of the party’s Central Command Team meeting being in Johannesburg.

On Friday, lobby group AfriForum filed a contempt of court application in the Pretoria High Court against the EFF and its leader, Julius Malema, over alleged breaches of a 2017 court order prohibiting calls for the illegal occupation of land.

The 2017 order prohibits Malema and the EFF from encouraging people to trespass on or enter land without the permission of the owner or legal occupant.

In a statement, AfriForum said the application followed the EFF and Malema’s renewed calls for the illegal occupation of land, despite a court order the organisation obtained in 2017 prohibiting the EFF from making such calls.

“In the most recent incident, during a public EFF lecture held on 23 July this year at the University of Limpopo in Polokwane, Malema referred, among other things, to young people who would one day enter and occupy a farm in Stellenbosch,” the statement read.

“In another incident, on 6 April 2025, the EFF called on people to occupy land in a post on the party’s official X account. According to the post, ‘our people must go get the land’ and ‘occupy everywhere where they need to farm and build houses’,” AfriForum said.

The controversial lobby group is also asking the court to find Malema and the EFF guilty of contempt of court and for the EFF to be fined R500 000. It wants Malema to be sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment or for another appropriate sanction to be imposed.

Last week, AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit succeeded in persuading the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to prosecute Malema for crimen injuria after he allegedly called former Bergview College principal Jaco Pieterse a child rapist.

The decision follows representations made by the unit on Pieterse’s behalf after a criminal complaint against Malema was lodged at Sophiatown police station in June 2025.

The NPA instructed the chief prosecutor in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court to initiate proceedings against Malema. It is not yet known when the matter will be enrolled.

On 6 April 2025, during the EFF’s Land Reclamation Day at Sophiatown Extreme Park, the red beret leader alleged that a school principal had raped a seven-year-old girl.

He questioned why the principal was allegedly being treated differently from other suspects and suggested that the principal might have committed similar offences in the past.

Gardee said it was not only now that Malema had been targeted; that had been the case since childhood.

He said they had seen that happening and were up to the task of dealing with it but for now, the focus was only on 4 November.

“One thing first, the rest will follow and then we will deal with AfriForum.

“They must go and contest the elections on the 4th of November. We are too busy to even comment on AfriForum. They have got their own agenda with the imperialists in America and white capital in South Africa.”

A few weeks ago, the EFF announced Gardee as its mayoral candidate in Mbombela.

Speaking about his plans on Monday, Gardee said the party would prioritise the restoration and construction of roads, saying Mbombela would become a construction site.

“The problems in Mbombela are the bad roads connecting the villages, lack of water, the issues of electricity and corruption by the municipality, politicians and officials of Mbombela.”

Gardee added that the party would also be contesting every ward across the country.

“We are contesting every ward, every street. Not a single ward won’t be contested, including Stellenbosch, Constantia and any other place you think is white-exclusive. There will be an EFF candidate.

“We are not a regionalist political party, nor are we a racist political party. We don’t have a stronghold as the EFF. We have got a footprint in all 498 wards of South Africa, [at] 24 000 voting stations across South Africa and in the 213 municipalities.”