South Africa’s former African National Congress Youth League leader, Julius Malema, has launched a political group called the Economic Freedom Fighters, the BBC has reported.

Malema, who was expelled from the governing ANC in 2012, said the EFF wanted the redistribution of farm land and the nationalisation of the mines.

“We will share, black and white. But failure to share means you will be forced to share,” he said.

He described his movement’s ideology as “anti-capitalist”.

Wearing a red beret inscribed with “Commander In Chief EFF”, Malema told journalists in Johannesburg that the EFF was “inspired by people’s suffering on the ground”, the South African Press Association quotes him as saying.

“We all belong here, but we all have to show proof that we belong here,” he said.

“Black people have nothing to show. Therefore we must give them something to show so they can say proudly: This is our land, this is our country.”

Once a close ally of President Jacob Zuma, Malema has become one of his strongest critics and campaigned for his removal from office at the ANC’s national conference in December 2012.

He has accused the president of not doing enough to help the poor black voters who had helped to elect him, reported BBC News.