The South African leftwing politician Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison for firing a rifle in the air at a political rally in 2018.

Lawyers for the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, South Africa’s fourth largest political party, immediately appealed, and Malema will remain free while the appeal proceedings are under way.

Malema was convicted last year on five charges, including unlawful possession of a firearm and discharging a weapon in a public place, after an incident at the EFF’s fifth anniversary celebrations in KuGompo City, then known as East London.

The magistrate, Twanet Olivier, said: “It wasn’t … an impulsive act … It wasn’t anger. It was the event of the evening.”

Malema’s lawyers had argued the shots were intended just to be celebratory and that no one was harmed.

Olivier said in her sentencing remarks: “We should also keep in mind the magnitude of the offence that the accused is being convicted of. We have heard daily or weekly of children playing in their front yards or the street, who are caught in crossfire. Random shots fired, killing people. It’s just the first time we hear it’s being called celebratory shots.”

She said: “Unfortunately, the accountability on a public office bearer is a lot more, it weighs heavy, than that of a regular South African person.”

Any prison sentence longer than 12 months would bar Malema from being a member of parliament, although that would not go into effect until all appeals had been exhausted.

Olivier granted Malema, who had pleaded not guilty, leave to appeal against his sentence, but not his conviction. His lawyers said they would petition a higher court for leave to appeal against the conviction as well.

Malema, the former leader of the African National Congress’s youth league, was defiant in a speech afterwards to dozens of red-shirted EFF supporters who had watched proceedings outside the magistrates court in KuGompo City.

He attacked the magistrate personally, accusing her of being racist and not reading written arguments submitted by both sides. “We were tried by a magistrate who doesn’t read, who uses emotions, who speaks politics,” he said.

Later, Malema said: “We are fighting the enemy and the enemy is white supremacy.”

State prosecutors had argued for a 15-year jail sentence. “The accused is a political leader with a huge following … young people emulate this kind of behaviour,” the prosecutor Joel Cesar said during the sentencing arguments on Wednesday. “He’s a member of parliament, a lawmaker, but he breaks the law.”

The case was brought by AfriForum, a conservative lobby group that claims to represent the interests of the Afrikaner minority. AfriForum had also criticised Malema for chanting “Kill The Boer” at rallies and brought a separate case accusing him of hate speech. “Boer” is another name for Afrikaners and means “farmer” in Afrikaans.

The constitutional court ruled in 2025 that the chant, which originated as an anti-apartheid song, was not hate speech and not meant to be taken literally.

Last year, the US president, Donald Trump, spliced together clips of Malema saying “we are going to occupy land” and “we must never be scared to kill”, before singing Kill The Boer, in a video he played to South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in a controversial Oval Office meeting.

Malema, 45, the son of a domestic worker, founded the EFF in 2013 after he was expelled from the ruling ANC for “sowing division”.

The EFF is known for its disruptive parliamentary protests and describes itself as anti-imperialist and inspired by Marxism, which Malema espouses in fiery speeches. Its policies include land expropriation and nationalisation.

While the EFF has attracted the support of some young people disenchanted by the high unemployment and inequality that has persisted since the end of white minority apartheid rule in 1994, its popularity has waned. In national elections in 2024 it secured 9.5% of the vote, down from 10.8% in 2019.

Reuters contributed to this report