More than 60 African National Congress members in South Africa’s parliament will back a no-confidence vote against President Jacob Zuma if the ballot is secret, the leader of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party (EFF), Julius Malema, said.

Malema, a former head of the ANC’s Youth League and a firebrand politician known for his colourful language, said in an interview on Thursday that he had received personal commitments that ANC MPs would dump Zuma.

“I’m not talking to opposition MP’s (members of parliament), I am talking to ANC MP’s. I am talking to ANC MP’s – I have spoken to more than 60 of them. They’ve committed, they’ve asked that this thing (motion of no confidence vote) must be secret, they will deliver it. They are not happy themselves, they are not happy themselves, so don’t undermine the secret ballot,” he said.

Malema, whose party supports expropriating white-owned land and the nationalisation of mines and banks, said economic misrule under Zuma was deepening apartheid’s racial disparities.

“When we speak about the rot, that’s what we are pointing to. The country’s rotten to a point where the law enforcement has been shut down,” he said.

“Except that it deals with petty crimes, of people who are stealing food in restaurants and shoplifters and all that. But the real things that is eating our country is not being dealt with, which is corruption.”

Black South Africans make up 80 percent of the 54 million population, yet most of the economy in terms of ownership of land and companies remains in the hands of whites, who account for about 8 percent of the population.

Zuma faces the no-confidence motion on August 8, the ninth time the opposition will have tried to unseat him by peeling off dissidents from the ruling party, whose majority has so far protected him.

But unlike previous attempts, this time the vote may not be open. The Constitutional Court has cleared the way for the Speaker to allow a secret ballot, though it remains unclear she will.