EFF leader Julius Malema has launched a scathing attack on President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying the president has an inferiority complex and cannot work without supervision.
Ramaphosa is expected to be the ANC’s candidate for president at the first sitting of the National Assembly on Friday after the May 29 general elections.
“Ramaphosa suffers from [an] inferiority complex. He cannot work without supervision. To invite the DA is to invite supervisors. So we reject white supremacy … If this is our natural death, let us die with our boots on,” Malema said at a media briefing on Thursday night.
The EFF locked themselves out of initial high-level multiparty negotiations with SA’s two biggest political parties about the formation of the government of national unity (GNU) over its insistence that it would not work with the DA in a government of national unity.
The EFF, which lost mass support in the recent poll, is also on record saying it expects the ANC to offer it a deputy president position as well as the finance ministry. Alternatively, it wanted to get the speaker’s office in exchange for support of the GNU.
Malema met Ramaphosa on Thursday morning but the two leaders could not come to an immediate agreement on the way forward.
“I have this morning met the president of the ANC … and I have expressed the wishes and the decisions of the EFF to him. Key among others included that we will not participate in the GNU because that is a plan B for the Oppenheimer family to remain in charge,” Malema said.
Business Day understands though that talks between the ANC and EFF will continue until late on Thursday night in an attempt to accommodate each other on the way forward.
Earlier on Thursday on social media, Malema rallied “progressive forces” to hold onto each other with such strength that it unsettled the “racists and collaborators”.
“Our readiness to face any consequences will carry us to victory and history will absolve us. We must destroy the very idea of fear from our minds by consistently telling the truth because ultimately, the truth will conquer evil.
“Fear not fellow fighters because we will never sell out the EFF founding manifesto for political expediency. We shall overcome, victory is certain.” Malema wrote.
Relations between the ANC and the EFF have been tense since the watershed May 29 elections.
On Thursday morning TimesLIVE reported that the ANC in Gauteng had resolved to terminate its relationship with the EFF in metros.
This comes after the provincial executive committee (PEC) met on Wednesday to discuss the ANC’s strategy when entering into coalitions with partners in its GNU pact.
The first salvo was fired by Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza when he removed EFF Gauteng chairperson Nkululeko Dunga as the city’s finance MMC, replacing him with former ANC Women’s League regional secretary Nomadlozi Nkosi.
The ANC in the province has had a long-standing relationship with the EFF, going so far as refusing a directive from the national executive committee (NEC) to terminate its partnership.
“The decision is aimed at ensuring we can effectively fast-track the completion and approval of the annual budget, a critical task for the continued development and growth of our city. Furthermore, there is a critical need to urgently turn around the concerning financial position of the city,” Xhakaza said.
With TimesLive
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