Kunene, Malema ‘cockroach’ spat heads to court

The saga surrounding Patriotic Alliance (PA) deputy president Kenny Kunene hurling insults at Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema is underway in court on Monday.

Both politicians are in the Johannesburg High Court, where Malema is set to sue Kunene for calling him a “cockroach” and a “criminal” during an interview with eNCA last year.

Kunene, a former EFF member, was responding to Malema saying he was “conflicted” about working with “mapantiti” (convicts), amid coalition negotiations between the PA and EFF after last year’s local government elections.

Kunene and PA leader Gayton McKenzie have both spent time behind bars.

ALSO READ: Malema demands apology from Kunene over ‘hate speech’ and ‘tribalism’ – report

“I’m going to deal with this little frog. Julius is just an irritating cockroach that I must now deal with publicly. I will call the press and begin to show you that Julius, whatever he criticises, he is…

“Julius is a criminal and I’m going to show South Africans the crimes he has been involved in. I’m going to tell South Africans why I left the EFF because of this cockroach. So I’m going to deal with this cockroach because we have given him time and respect.

“He’s got his issues, he hates himself and now he hates everybody else,” Kunene told eNCA.

Malema then reportedly demanded through his lawyers that Kunene withdraw his comments and make a public apology, or face a R1 million lawsuit.

He accused Kunene of hate speech and tribalism, saying the comments he made caused “significant reputational damage”.

ALSO READ: WATCH: Kunene calls Malema a ‘little cockroach’ as feud intensifies

In court papers, Malema argued that Kunene’s description of him using the words “little frog” and “cockroach”, and his refusal to apologise, means the PA leader thinks the EFF leader deserves “sub-human treatment”.

“It is hardly a stretch of the imagination that the first respondent used the term as a dog whistle, such that I should be targeted for, inter alia, my tribal ethnicity and/or social origin and/or conscience and/or belief.

“This he did on the sole basis of me being a political opponent and evidently based on my ethnicity.”

Malema used former speaker of parliament Baleka Mbete in his argument that Kunene should have apologised for using the term if he meant no harm to him.

Mbete called Malema a cockroach during a provincial elective conference in North West 2015. She later apologised for it.

On the morning of the court case, Kunene continued with his name-calling.

“I have avoided to wrestle with a pig in the mud but the pig has pulled me to the mud. Ziyakhala ke manje.”