Sona 2023: EFF not removed to protect Ramaphosa, only his feelings – Malema

Julius Malema said Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members didn’t pose “any physical threat” to President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Thursday night.

Malema asked why holding a placard in a peaceful manner considered a threat, especially since the president “requires no protection in Parliament”.

Sona 2023 disruptions

Constituion versus Ramaphosa’s ‘feelings’

The EFF leader said the party’s intention was peaceful. He said the red berets wanted to stand silently on the stage, holding placards while the president addressed the nation.

“Once counter-assault teams are called in to allegedly protect a president who was never in danger, you are no longer talking about the constitution,” Malema said, “you are talking about feelings.”

He said the constitution protects peaceful protest and raised the following point:

“President Ramaphosa requires no protection in Parliament. He’s more powerful than me. I have no tools to harm him.”

Task force presence ‘premeditated’

Malema also believes the president’s task force team went overboard, and it was never their goal to ‘protect the president’.

Instead, it was a “premeditated” attempt by the ANC to target EFF members.

He explains: “If they’re protecting the president, why are they touching me? They should be building a wall around the president. They didn’t, they came to me. They weren’t even close to the president.”

“That’s not protecting the president, that’s harassment.”

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Guns in parliament

Malema also said the drama which transpired on Thursday evening “is an illustration that South Africa has degenerated into a dictatorship”.

This was evident, he says, by the decision to bring in an elite unit “with firearms to intimidate MPs, a phenomenon that is not allowed anywhere in the world”.

“There must never ever be a demonstration of guns in Parliament because such will erode the foundations of our democratic culture and will most definitely intimidate MPs from meaningful participation.”

Ruling violation: DA vs Speaker of NA

He said the illegal invasion of gun-yielding Saps members not only violated the constitutional privilege of freedom of speech, it also goes against the Western Cape High Court ruling between the Democratic Alliance and the Speaker of the National Assembly (Case number 2792/2015).

“The judgment which led to the amendment of the rules to make it clear that only Parliamentary Protection Services would deal with conduct of members in the chamber and not security services as defined by Section 199 of the constitution.

“We made these changes to the rules because to allow defence force, police services and any intelligence into parliament chambers will grossly render Section 58 of the constitution null and void, and undermine members of parliament’s freedom of speech.”

“Hence rule 61 of the assembly states that the sergeant-at-arms must arrange with the Parliamentary Protection Services for the removal of any person that is deemed to be disrupting proceedings, and not security services,” Malema said.

Ramaphosa same as Zuma

Malema said the EFF will continue to oppose the president, with whom they fundamentally disagree.

What we do to Ramaphosa is the same we did the Zuma.

Malema concluded: “Phala Phala will never die. The sooner the ANC deal with it, the better. […] We are going to fight until Ramaphosa is held accountable.”