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‘Why do you still want SA to burn?’ – Malema says Ramaphosa’s ‘hands not tied’ over Zuma
The EFF leader says Ramaphosa must choose peace over potential unrest.
EFF leader Julius Malema briefs media at Winnie Madikizela Mandela House in Johannesburg on 14 March 2023. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to intervene to avoid a repeat of the July 2021 riots following the court ruling on his predecessor Jacob Zuma’s parole.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court (ConCourt) dismissed the Department of Correctional Services’ application for leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling, which found Zuma’s release on medical parole was unlawful.
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The ConCourt’s judgment could see Zuma back in prison, two years after his initial arrest sparked widespread protests that saw more than 337 people killed. It is now up to Correctional Services national commissioner, Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale, to decide whether the former president must return to the Estcourt Correctional Centre to complete his jail sentence.
Zuma was slapped with a 15-month sentence by the ConCourt in July 2021 for contempt after he refused to testify at the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture.
‘Choose peace’
Speaking during his engagements with reporters at the Maslow Hotel in Sandton on Friday, Malema revealed that he had pleaded with Zuma to cooperate when he was facing the prospect of going to jail, in order to avoid violence.
“You know, when President Zuma was refusing to go to the commission and those things of the Constitutional Court, I went to visit him and I pleaded with him, and I said ‘President Zuma, you don’t lose anything, go there and speak’. Go and put your perspective, it doesn’t matter what the decision is,” he said.
The EFF leader said he made attempts to mediate the situation by asking Ramaphosa to consider giving Zuma a presidential pardon.
“I wanted to avoid what happened,” he said in reference to the July unrest.
READ MORE: Has SA learned from the experience of the July 2021 unrest?
He revealed that he called Ramaphosa once the outcome of the ConCourt was communicated on Thursday.
“When I called yesterday his phone didn’t go through so I went looking for his phone number,” Malema continued.
“We don’t know what’s going to be the decision of the Department of Correctional Services. The president’s hand are not tied and that’s what we want to remind him of. We have reached a point where we must choose peace over all this types of things [rather than] say no one is above the law. Zuma has served [his sentence]. It’s enough. Why do you still want to burn this country even after a person has served?”
Mkhwebane judgment
Malema also spoke on the ConCourt’s decision to rule in favour of Ramaphosa regarding Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s suspension.
The apex court found that there were “rational reasons” for the president to suspend Mkhwebane, partly because her absence in office did not block the Phala Phala investigations from continuing.
But the EFF leader said he was of the view that the judgment was “bad”.
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“It doesn’t matter how you look at it,” he said.
“The court that took a correct decision is the Western Cape Court. The president was emotional, the president stood to benefit from that. We respect the decision of the Constitutional Court, but we disagree with it respectfully. The decisions of the court are not alpha and omega.”
Malema also criticised Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka, who cleared Ramaphosa of wrongdoing on Phala Phala, saying she exonerated the president because she was vying for a top position at the Chapter 9 institution.
EFF exclusion from DA’s moonshot pact
Meanwhile, Malema said the EFF would like to work with opposition parties to remove the ANC from power and offer an alternative solution to citizens.
“We cannot impose ourselves on the opposition parties. If they don’t want us then we will work with those who want to work with us, but our preferred choice will be that the opposition parties should come together to unseat the ANC and we have done this before. We went into the municipalities and removed the ANC,” the EFF leader said.
Asked why the Democratic Alliance (DA) excluded the EFF in metros such Tshwane and Johannesburg, Malema said he believed the party was threatened by the Red Berets’ growth.
READ MORE: ‘They know EFF can’t be controlled’, says Malema on DA’s ‘moonshot pact’
“The EFF is breathing down their neck and they have come to accept that the EFF is going to pass the DA,” he continued.
“The DA is a racist organisation that can’t impose those racist attitudes on the EFF because the EFF is the only organisation that confronts racism openly without shame.
“They know that we will speak for black people and we will do so unashamedly, [but] speaking for black people doesn’t mean we hate white people. We are speaking for the oppressed and white people are not oppressed,” Malema added.
