Sihle Lonzi

Sihle Lonzi (born 1997 or 1998) is a South African politician who has served as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa since November 2024, representing the Economic Freedom Fighters party, of which he led the party's student wing from 2022 until 2025. Quotes I was not very politically active in high school, although I did participate in leadership roles, in the form of the Representative Councils. I was also the Head Boy at SACS, as well as the Head Boy of the boarding school. I think I became radicalized at university, because I started just after the hangover of the Fees Must Fall and Rhodes Must Fall protest. Although these big protest action had passed on campus, there was still a lot of consciousness that related to reflections on the past years, questions of decolonization, consciousness of blackness in South Africa, the broader struggle for economic freedom and more. I then participated in the EFF Student Command and have been in a leadership position at an SRC level. Through my participation in the student movement of the EFF, I got to engage quite intimately with key questions around the organization and had the opportunity to participate in important forums and rallies, meetings and many other assembly’s of the organization. In 2022, I contested the EFF’s Student Command Presidency at a national level, after being the Head of Media and Communications of the Student Command in the province. I was then the National President of the EFF Student Command and led from 2022 until December 2024, when the Student Command was dissolved. The EFF is now in the process of establishing a Youth Command which I am the Convener of, and which will mobilize all young people in South Africa and not just students, as has been our focus before. The President and leadership of the Youth Command will be elected in June 2025. I would credit a lot of my involvement in the university space to the EFF’s student movement as this is where I became radicalized about key questions confronting young people in South Africa and in general I think the most important thing, for me really, was to advance and add a voice to the struggles of young people in South Africa, specifically. I think long before becoming a Member of Parliament, there were key and very important questions, which we'll be grappling with. The question of access to education, the question of joblessness confronting a lot of young people in South Africa, the question of student debt, and many other issues that are confronting youth in general, and students as well. So, I think from there, the mandate was to look at how we ensure that the frustration of young people outside the corridors of power are able to be elevated inside those spaces, because it has always been our view, and now, of course, the EFF helped a lot in 2013, to make parliament popular, but before that, I think it was an almost accepted thing that the ordinary person on the ground was very detached from Parliament. External links Category:Living people Category:1990s births Category:Politicians from South Africa