EFF leader Julius Malema. Picture: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers.
The EFF commander in Chief Julius Malema said should his party get into coalition with the ANC, they would not get into it with Cyril Ramaphosa as president.
Malema accused Ramaphosa of being a proxy for the Oppenheimers, adding that his loyalty was to them as opposed to South Africans.
“They gave him money to establish a mine union, yet he has never been a mine worker. He went to school to do law and when he came back, he worked at the legal office of the Oppenheimers. While he was there, there was a commission established to look into the condition of black workers which gave recommendations that unions of black workers must be opened,” he said.
Malema said upon realising that unionised workers would cause a problem, they then sponsored National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
He continued to say he found it difficult to understand as to why members of the governing party failed to put Ramaphosa accountable on the basis of facts.
“We had more black professionals and millionaires during president Jacob Zuma’s time, today it’s difficult to find an African billionaire because everyone who was doing business with Eskom has been taken away.
“Then you want to subject us to another five years of that suffering. I don’t understand why these guys (ANC) don’t take him on, on basis of facts,” Malema explained.
The EFF leader also touched on the Parliament powers to amend the president’s powers, saying that it was unfair to expect people appointed by the president to investigate him should he be found wanting, citing Phala Phala as an example.
Malema said Parliament needed to have powers to appoint the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), adding that laws must also be initiated and finalised by Parliament instead of waiting for the executive.
The Red Beret leader also advocated for the independence of the judiciary, saying that independent judges won’t be co-opted into the political agenda.
“We can’t have a chief justice of the country serving the seating president, we can’t also have judges that are anti transformation. We can’t have a section of the Western Cape high court who want to behave like they are not part of the things we want to do.”
Malema’s comments comes two days after the Pretoria High Court judge Mandlenkosi Motha demanded an explanation from an all-white group of lawyers as to why there weren’t a single black lawyer among them.
According to reports, Motha boasted that he was only on the bench because of affirmative action, potentially a reference to the judicial selection process he underwent last year, in which his failure to correctly apply basic tests of evidence was overlooked because of his record in promoting the interests of the black race.
The Star
sipho.jack@inl.co.za