Whatever else you may think of him, South African politics certainly became a lot more interesting when firebrand former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema started rowing his own canoe. With its million voters in the last election expected to swell in the next one, Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters have become a serious force. For the moment, the red capped leader has switched his attention from arch enemy, President Jacob Zuma, to another of the powerful members of the tripartite alliance, SA Communist Party supremo Blade Nzimande. And as this piece from Genevieve Quintal shows, Malema has never learnt the art of the understatement. Â – Alec Hogg
By Genevieve Quintal of News24Johannesburg – The war of words between the SA Communist Party and the EFF has been going on for months and continued after the red berets leader Julius Malema called Blade Nzimande a drunkard at the weekend.
The SA Communist Party on Monday expressed contempt for comments made by Malema about its general secretary.
“The insults by Malema and his ilk directed at our general secretary are motivated by the fact that the SACP was the first political party to expose Malema’s demagogy and corrupt tenderpreneural activities,” party spokesperson Alex Mashilo said in a statement.
“He knows that we will continue to do so.”
Mashilo said it was important to remember that the Public Protector Thuli Madonsela had found that Malema, through his Ratanang Family Trust had improperly benefitted from a Limpopo tender.
Malema is expected to face charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering in the Polokwane High Court next month.
Last year September, Sapa reported that the case against Malema and his co-accused was postponed to August 2015.
52 counts of fraud
Malema and his two co-accused On-Point Engineering directors Lesiba Gwangwa and Kagisho Dichabe face charges of racketeering and 52 other counts, including fraud.
At the Economic Freedom Fighters two year anniversary rally in Rustenburg at the weekend, Malema said his party did not fear Nzimande.
Earlier this month, Nzimande said the Young Communist League of SA should take on the EFF to make sure the party “dies”.
“We do not fear death. In fact we want Blade, not the Young Communist League [YCL]. Blade has said the YCL must kill the EFF. There is no organisation called the YCL, or the ANC Youth League. We challenge Nzimande to ask the YCL to fill a hall in Soweto, if they can fill a hall we will speak to them,” Malema told supporters on Saturday.
He took a swipe at the SACP general secretary, stating that while Nzimande drank red wine, the EFF was distributing red T-shirts.
The EFF in reaction to the SACP statement said it wanted Nzimande to retract his comments that the EFF “be killed”.
“Indeed only a drunk pseudo-communist could decide to incite hooliganism and violence against other socialist parties while leaving all liberals and bourgeois nationalists to flourish,” spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said in a statement.
“The SACP started the provocation by calling for the killing of the EFF and thought the EFF will not respond. We have responded and we shall never stop until Nzimande retracts his irresponsible and politically intolerant call for the killing of the EFF.”-Â News24
