The Political Struggle for ‘the people’: Populist Discourse in the 2019 South African Elections

Dr Robert Nyenhuis gave our August 6 seminar titled "The political struggle for ‘the people’: Populist discourse in the 2019 South African elections". This seminar investigated the usage of populist rhetoric in the 2019 South African elections. It argued that two politicians, Julius Malema and Dr. Pieter Groenewald, consistently employed populist appeals to mobilise supporters. This work examined how the actors’ political history and the sociopolitical context shaped their discourses, specifically considering their conceptualisations of ‘the people’.