A former United Democratic Front activist in the Free State, Bloem defected from the ANC to COPE ahead of the 2009 general election.
[2] He lived in the Coloured neighbourhood of Brentpark in Kroonstad and was an organiser for the ANC-aligned United Democratic Front (UDF) in the Orange Free State.
[3][4] In 1992, he and three others were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of George "Diwiti" Ramasimong, the leader of Kroonstad's anti-UDF Three Million Gang.
[5] Specifically, Bloem had been seen driving with the killer, UDF member Roland Petrus, to the taxi rank where Ramasimong was killed.
[14][15] At the end of his five-year term in the NCOP, Bloem stood for re-election to Parliament in the 2014 general election, ranked fourth on COPE's national party list.
In addition, in early 2019, he approached the Zondo Commission and asked to give evidence, emanating from his tenure as the portfolio committee chair, about corruption at the Department of Correctional Services.
In August of that year, he and COPE deputy president Willie Madisha announced that the party's executive had suspended COPE president Mosiuoa Lekota; Lekota and his allies issued a parallel letter of suspension, claiming that Bloem and Madisha had themselves been suspended by an earlier meeting of the executive.