EFF leader, Julius Malema. File photo
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema has criticised the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) decision not to support smaller opposition parties in parliament’s plan to impeach President Cyril Ramaphosa over the Phala Phala scandal as an “opportunistic strategy to continue holding Ramaphosa by the scrotum”.
Addressing the media on Thursday, before the reopening of parliament, Malema said the DA’s reason to oppose the impeachment was a response to the allegations contained in the leaked affidavit by the now defunct VBS Mutual Bank’s former boss, Tshifhiwa Matodzi.
“When we were voting in favour of the Phala Phala impeachment report, the VBS story was there. We voted together, even then. It is not like now there is a new story which is going to disturb them from voting with the EFF,” Malema said.
“They are using VBS to abandon their own earlier stance for expediency but, equally, they are using Phala Phala to hold Ramaphosa by the scrotum,” he said.
Malema added: “Every time he tries to move, they are going to say, ‘Phala Phala.’ That is why they said we won’t vote with these people, even though they don’t have a reason. That is an excuse to blackmail Ramaphosa.”
The parties, including the EFF, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the United Africans Transformation, and the African Transformation Movement, have formed what they call a “progressive caucus”.
They plan to have Ramaphosa removed as president on the basis of the findings of the Phala Phala panel, headed by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo. It found that the president has a case to answer on the source and sum of the foreign currency stolen from his farm in February 2020 and the efforts to recover it.
The report found cause for a case to answer, not only in the complaint laid with the police by former spy boss Arthur Fraser but in the many holes in the president’s version of what happened.
“The president has rightly criticised the evidence contained in Mr Fraser’s statements as full of hearsay, in particular, information from undisclosed sources,” the report noted.
“But some aspects of the evidence proffered by the president, in particular pertaining to the source of foreign currency, is also hearsay.”
Malema’s reaction comes after DA leader John Steenhuisen announced on Wednesday that the party would not vote for Ramaphosa’s impeachment.
The DA is in a government of national unity with the ANC and nine other parties, including former members of the “progressive caucus” — the United Democratic Movement, Al Jama-ah and the Pan Africanist Congress — who have since joined the GNU.
Malema criticised them, saying they had “sold out” and shown “cowardice” because they failed to announce their intention to move to the GNU. He said the remaining parties would be able to bring the change needed without these.
But he also said, “There will be common matters that bring us together and, therefore, from time to time, if we share common ground on any matter, we will not say because they are part of the GNU we will not vote with them. As long as we agree, we will vote together,” he said.
MK party parliamentary leader John Hlophe and Malema predicted the GNU would fall apart after a year and that an early ANC conference would remove Ramaphosa from his position as president.
Malema said the GNU would follow in the steps of Gauteng where the province had rejected the DA and formed a provincial government of unity with smaller parties.
Hlophe said the GNU’s lack of political legitimacy would lead to its demise as would the ANC and DA’s differences on policy.