By Merlyn Mwanza
I didn’t know you were a fortune teller, I thought your were a journalist, South Africa’s EFF leader Julius Malema told BBC journalist Stephen Sackur.
Featuring on the UK broadcaster BBC’s Hard Talk programme hosted by Sackur who had Malema as a guest on the programme, Sackur said that a crisis point was affecting South Africa, asking if the ANC monopoly on power was coming to an end and if he was ready to work with the biggest opposition DA party to bring the ANC’s rule to the end, Malema said the EFF alone would bring the ANC’s rule to an end.
“And our strategy as we are about to collapse this big elephant is not to consider who else to work with. We want to take down the ANC and we are doing exactly that,” Malema said.
But Sackur insisted that the EFF only gets about 10 percent of the vote in elections while the DA gets twice that number and therefore they have got to either build a coalition with other opposition parties or “you are never gonna get anywhere near power”, Malema retorted: “I didn’t know on the other side you are a fortune teller. I thought you were a journalist because you can’t tell what is going to happen in 2024. Only us who are involved in this work will tell you that the EFF is going to win 2024 elections and we will not need the racist DA, if that is what you are concerned about.”
Asked by Sackur on why he was adding to the chaos by calling for the removal of President Cyril Ramaphosa given the many problems South Africa was going through with mass unemployment and power cuts, Malema said that was the most logical thing to do when a leader does not perform and when the country was in a crisis to give others an opportunity who can do a better job.
But told that Ramaphosa was elected by the people and that business leaders feel that removing him would make South Africa’s situation worse, Malema said the democracy the journalist was defending was not found in any definitions of the constitution because the same constitution called for the impeachment and vote of no confidence in a president who did not perform.
He said Ramaphosa was found with money in his house which was not declared to the South African authorities.
But the interviewer argued that Ramaphosa had indicated that the money found at his farm was money he had earned from the sell of livestock and that the public protector was already investigation the matter, wondering why Malema could not simply back off to allow the authorities conduct their work, Malema said politics do not work like that where “someone from London tells you to back off.”
“There is no one from London who can tell us to back off. We do what we do and we do it for the best of our people. Ramaphosa has brought the office of the President into disrepute and we must be worried, we who love South Africa, that our office cannot be occupied by a person with so much accusations against him, including torturing of women,” he said.
But Sackur dismissed Malema and questioned his credibility as someone who has had a vendetta against Ramaphosa having labeled him a murderer already, Malema said Ramaphosa has not denied the allegations and has been failing to appear before the public protector to explain himself.
“And now we have a crisis with a government that is not held accountable, with a president that thinks he is above the law because he enjoys the protection of the capitalist white media. So the only thing we have is ourselves. We are going to bring our bodies to the streets,” Malema said was asked that he was being responsible for calling for a nationwide shut down given the poor state the South African economy was in, with hunger and over 30 percent unemployment.
Malema said the elite in South African was getting richer while the poor were getting more poorer and therefore there is going to be something that looks like an Arab spring if there is no immediate interventions to address the social conditions for the people.
Told that he has been convicted in the past for hate speech over his “kill the boer” song which he was responsible for airing on several occasions and he was facing new allegations for using hate speech against white people in the past few months, and asked if he was partly culpable for the rising tensions in his country, Malema said “If I was responsible for the rising tension in my country, what you see is picnic. It could have been worse than that if I was commanding it”, but that he had engaged in democratic means of trying to resolve matters.
But asked why he was still using the language of race hate if he was reasonable after suggesting before the AFRI-FORUM (a white organisation) that the slaughter of white people might happen in future and that he could not guarantee that he would not do it, Malema said he would not be denied the right to analyze society and give his own perception of what could be a possible outcome.
He said when the revolution starts in South Africa the target would be white people because they were the ones with the means together with a black elite which he said had created a class society would also be pursued.
“But the biggest losers are going to be white people who should by now come to the party and say ‘guys how do we find solution to the problems confronting our people,’” Malema said, but Sucker expressed surprise that the same Malema was part of creating the same society because his party was getting massive donations from a white man who runs a tobacco company despite accusing others of being in the pockets of white capital.
He said Malema also made a point of showing of how many luxury cars and holidays he has had and that he was one of the elite.
But Malema dismissed Sackur’s statements as lies.
“You see your problem is you lie a lot and then ask a small question. You are lying. You are a liar,” Malema said, arguing that his EFF party did not get money from any white man, saying the tobacco man only donated once when the party was being formed. “I am an elite. When masses come to attack all of us I will also be part of the people who are attacked by these masses on the ground because they will accuse us of having abandoned them in squalor…but we are trying everything in our power to say to them we are fighting for you to get a better life. It’s not an easy thing our people know leaders who are trying to make sure that things are equal.”
Put to him that he was calling for massive nationalization of resources “particularly white owned resources” despite the state owned power utility in the country failing the people and was also calling for “expropriation of white land with no compensation”, Malema said: “Well I think your biggest worry is white people. I have never heard you speak about black people in a manner and passion you are expressing yourself as if there are only white people here and there are no black people, who are actually at the receiving end of this crisis we are talking about.”
Malema accused the interviewer that his obsession with white people was exactly he said distorts the message.
“Earlier on you referred to AFRO FORUM as an organisation of white people. Call it for what it is. It is a racist organisation. It’s a racist white organisation, so our proposal is very clear, industrialization is going to create jobs, nationalisation of the mines is going to create jobs,” Malema said. “Nationalization of the land, expropriate it without compensation and the state becoming a custodian of the land will give a lot of our people access to the landa and they can use the land to sustain themselves with the help of the state.”
He challenged the interviewer who argued that state corporations were failing to also look at the private enterprises which were failing, saying he was deliberately trying to paint a picture that state enterprises were failing to justify the “nonsensical selling” of state owned enterprises.
Sackur then introduced the invasion of Russia on Ukraine which he said had caused problems across the globe in energy and food prices, wondering why he and his party were so loudly pro-Russian President Vladimir Putin, with his vice-president Floyd Tshivambu saying that the Russians do not target civilians or civilian infrastructure and they operate with a degree of respect and honour, Malema said “we are with Russia, and we are actually encouraging our government to work with Russia and to work with BRICS to try and find solutions to these problems we are confronted with.”
He said the Russians were there for South Africans when it was not fashionable during the freedom struggles, and that he would not make any apologies for associating with Russia.
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